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Everything posted by Scorpiany

I finally did it... I've gotten my recent WN8 above 3,000. I intend to keep it climbing, but for now - I'm going to jot down a few key things which I have learned that really stand out.
Maintain a healthy situational awareness: Don't let yourself tunnel vision... no matter what you do, no matter how you're fighting or who you're fighting, you always want to watch your surroundings. Not only will you be able to detect enemy vehicles trying to flank you before they get the opportunity, but you will also be more likely do dodge artillery, and avoid finding yourself in a crossfire. I've seen too many allies and enemies focus upon one vehicle in the battle, only for their enemy to take advantage of this and absolutely wreck them.
Don't be afraid to pull back from a flank: If your gun is desperately needed in a flank, put it in there and use it. However, there are times when it becomes increasingly obvious that the flank you are at will be quickly overrun, or flanked and destroyed from behind. If your flank is disintegrating, don't be afraid to turn your tank around and put on your "Nope" shoes. However, if you feel as though you need to pull back, don't hesitate. The more time you spend at a failing flank, the more likely you are to be shot up during your grand escape. When I feel as though it's time to begin pulling back, if I don't begin moving immediately, all too often I'll be destroyed while I'm trying to escape. If you find that you have hesitated for too long and escape is now impossible, just stick with your allies and try to do as much as you possibly can... the enemies which overrun you are the same enemies that the rest of your allies will be fighting, so at least try to cripple them.
If your gun is not shooting your tracks should be rolling: If you are not contributing to the battle, your allies are effectively down a tank. There are very few times when you should be cowering behind a corner while your allies are fighting... usually this is only the case for non-scout autoloading tanks. However, unless you have an empty autoloader or a very long reload, you should be in the battle. Yes, you should wait for the right opportunity to make your moves, but don't hesitate for extended periods of time. The longer you're not doing anything, the more likely your allies are to lose.
XVM Win Chance is not to be used to judge a battle before it starts. Remember - it's a chance (i.e. prediction of the likelihood of a victory or loss). If your chance to win is low (let's say 33%), you will still win 1 out of every 3 battles with similar predictions - however, if you give up and don't even try in the battle, you are only reducing your chance to win; and often times significantly. Also, keep in mind that recent posts on the Forums and FTR including data from thousands of battles has indicated that in general, XVM Win Chance gives an inaccurate prediction - If you were to average the XVM Predictions for 1,000 battles (let's say you end up with the number 55%), you would find that (assuming you don't give up) will win anywhere from 1%-5% more battles than it predicts (the greater the gap between your recent WN8 and overall, the greater the percentage of additional victories). Even though 1%-5% doesn't seem like much, keep in mind that is 10-50 more victories than XVM predicted... if you give up when you see a low Win Chance, you are more than likely to turn some of those would-be victories into losses. Don't let XVM Win Chance ruin your mood - it's a prediction of probability, and an inaccurate one at that. Every battle always has a chance to be won. Giving up or getting upset about the prediction only reduces the likelihood that you will win.
If the entire team lemming trains... follow the train: Sadly, there are times when the entire team goes off in one direction, or rather simply sits at base. If your team does this, don't go off on your own to a doomed flank. The only result will be that you get yourself killed to no avail. When your team lemmings, follow the lemming train and make it a success. Once you've won your lemming flank, either push to the enemy base, or fall back to your own... just work with what you have and make the lemming train work.
Never trust allies: As much as I hate to say it, you just can't trust your allies. Unless you got confirmation from an ally that they will do exactly what you have told them to do, don't expect an ally to do anything, no matter how simple or easy it is. Sadly, most players in pub battles are a lot worse than you would hope. Do not do anything that relies heavily on your team. Always leave yourself an escape route and a Plan B. Also, communicate. Talk with your allies... if you want them to move up, or support you, let them know. Saying "Attack!" or "Help!" won't work... type out a text message and try to get confirmation from your allies that they will follow it... and if you get no response, assume they're doing their own thing.
If you're going to say something, make it positive: If you're going to type in the chat, keep it positive. Negative text only reduces your team's chance to win by taking the focus of your allies away from the game, as well as breaking their mood and focus.
If you want an ally to do something, be specific: Earlier today, there was a JagTiger 8,8cm. facing a Chaffee who's behind a rock. The JgTig8,8cm can one-shot the Chaffee, and the two tanks are 300m away from eachother. The Chaffee isn't even directly behind the rock... he's a distance aways from it. I told my JgTig to move his tank and kill the Chaffee... sadly, he drove straight up to the rock and let the Chaffee circle him... all what the JgTig needed to do was turn his tank to the left, and move about 30m or so to the left... driving up to the rock was not only unnecessary, but suicidal. Obviously, that was my fault. I presumed that the JgTig would figure out that he simply needed to change his line of sight.. instead, he charged the Chaffee (plunging his tank into shallow water, thus reducing his speed). The way my comment came out was unproductive, and had very negative consequences. I needed to specify to the JgTig that he needs to move 30m to the left so he'll have shots at the enemy Chaffee.
Have fun: If you lose, or if you have a bad battle, bad RNG or something of the sort, try not to get frustrated. Frustration only reduces your focus, and will only make you do worse, thus become even more frustrated... the cycle then repeats as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you did well, even if you lost or missed a critical shot, keep your cool. Take note of what you did wrong and what you could have done better, but don't get frustrated. Instead of focusing on the negatives of a battle, focus on its positives.
Criticize yourself: Watch your own replays, or think about how you did and what you did after a battle ends. Try to find your mistakes and realize what you did wrong. If you discovered something new which works out very well, take note of that as well. Learn from mistakes, and emphasize your strengths.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. I may have 3,000 recent WN8, but there are still some things which I have no idea how to do - I'm clueless when it comes to setting up my artillerly, I have no idea how to brawl in the city in Windstorm, I just can't stop drifting in my MT-25 when trying to circle a tank, and despite putting on Camo, Emblems and Inscriptions onto everyone of my tanks prior to taking them out to battle, I did not realize that I could translate the inscriptions in foreign languages to English by simply highlighting them. Everyone has there strengths and weaknesses. I can't play slow tanks very well - I try to avoid any tank which is not fast (or at least fast for its class). There are some parts of maps which I have never once taken my tank to fight, even though I see allies go there all the time. There are maps which I've mastered one side of the map, and haven't learned any of the other side... obviously that's bad. I perform a lot better on maps on which I am familiar with the entire map. That's why when I have the opportunity, I will explore and try out the "other side" of any map I'm not familiar with. Keep learning, keep asking questions.
When trying to learn how to play a tank, focus on playing only that tank... don't keep bouncing around back and forth between the tanks in your Garage. Yes, it may be frustrating at first because you're unfamiliar with the tank, but the only way you will master a tank is by playing it and (not necessarily solely but) mostly it. You won't learn how to play your heavy tanks if you keep switching back to lights, and you won't master scouting if you bounce between your TD's.
There are times when your team is at a position to absolutely over-whelm the remaining enemy, but they are all too afraid to move up. If telling them to move up in chat doesn't work, sometimes you will have to be the one who leads the push into the enemy. You don't have to suicidally rush out; you can inch out and try to encourage the enemy to fire their guns and bounce off of your armor, but if the enemy don't fire then at least your allies are likely to being inching out with you. If you have the HP and armor though, sometimes you will have to sacrifice a handful of your tank's HP to allow your allies to win the push. 99% of the time in this scenario, as soon as the enemy fire off their guns your allies will push all the way up. Just make sure that there aren't any TD's or artillery waiting to strike - if that's the case, you may be better off leaving your allies there and trying to go around. If you don't have the HP nor armor, you may have no choice but to go around, or wait for your allies. The very least you can do is tell your allies which tanks they have that are in the best position (and most likely to survive) a forwards push, to hopefully give your team the courage to do something... but don't be the one who sits still with your allies in silence; otherwise you're contributing to their cowardice. If you can't lead the push yourself, at least try to organize a push via. chat, or flank around the enemy to distract them from behind.
My apologies for the blob of text, and for any errors which it may contain. I'm tired right now, and was about to go to sleep, until I discovered I reached my goal. I hope my tips prove to be useful!

Hello everyone!
I've noticed a few things that many people often miss about Aslain's Mod Pack. In this Thread, I will discuss them in detail. I hope this is of some use!
The topics that I will cover are:
Basic Installation PSA
Mixing Aslain's Mod Pack with other mod packs
Files that Aslain's Mod Pack leaves behind in your Game Client.
Partial Un-installation
In-game Crashes and Freezes
Other Information
[basic Installation PSA]
Whilst downloading Aslain's Mod Pack, there will not be a shortcut on the Desktop. If you are planning on using the same version of the installer in the future, go to your Downloads folder, and Create a Shortcut on your Desktop. This is also where you can access all versions of Aslain's Mod Pack that you have downloaded in the past.
You may select the installer's language upon start-up. You may not change the language once you have gone past the Language pop-up. If you have selected the wrong language, turn off the installer, and turn it back on again. You will then be able to select the correct language.
If Google Chrome says that Aslain's Mod Pack contains a virus, don't believe it! Google Chrome often sends off false alarms. Aslain's mod-pack is absolutely safe to use.
If you cancel the installation of selected mods in the middle of the process, some traces of the modifications may remain. In order to remove these, simply go to your res_mods folder and delete them, or run a clean installation next time you download mods.
[Mixing Aslain's Mod Pack with other mod packs]
You can use multiple mod packs with your game client. In order to avoid conflicts, make sure that you're not installing the same mod twice, or installing an out-dated mod with a different mod pack. As long as you're installing different mods, and up-to-date mods, there should be no conflicts.
You may notice that some other mod packs have similar lay-outs to Aslain's installer. Make sure that you read the buttons carefully. Some other mod pack authors use similar appearances, but may place certain buttons in different locations. Double check what you are pressing! This applies to Aslain's Mod Pack too!
Other mod packs may or may not over-write mods that Aslain's Mod Pack has installed. Chances are, they will over-write and update your current mods. If this does not happen, un-install Aslain's Mod Pack, and remove any traces of it.
[Files that Aslain's Mod Pack leaves behind in your Client]
There are several different files that Aslain's Mod Pack will leave behind in your Client.
The file names are:
Aslains_Downloaded_FilesThis is where all of the archived Downloadable Content (DLC) files end up after you finish installing Aslain's Mod Pack. If you wish to remove Aslain's Mod Pack in the future, but keep one of these mods, simply drag the appropriate RAR file to your Desktop.
_Aslains_InstallerThis is the text file that the Installer creates and leaves behind whilst installing your mods. This is essentially an event log of everything that the installer has done.
_Aslains_Installer_CompListThis is a ReadMe file of all of the most recently installed mods and selected options. If for whatever reason Aslain's Mod Pack does not detect your most previously saved settings (usually due to a cache clearing), then this ReadMe file is where you can find exactly which mods and options you had selected.
_Aslains_Installer_Options (Setup Information)This file also states which mods you had most recently installed. However, this is a file that Aslain's Mod Pack may read and use to pre-set these settings the next time you run a Custom Installation (if I am correct)
_Aslains_Installer_Options (Text file)This is a Text File for Aslain's Installer. This file is not directly used by Aslain's Mod Pack, rather it's a remainder after an installation has been run. It's essentially a text file of the Setup information.
unins001This is the un-installation wizard for Aslain's Mod Pack. Double click on it and follow the steps to remove Aslain's Mod Pack from your computer.
You might also see a file called:
IMPORTANT REGARDING THIS VERSIONThis file is left behind by GnomeFather's Historical Realism Gun Sounds Mod. Since GnomeFather's Mod is part of DLC, Aslain's Installer uses all of the files that GnomeFarther left behind in his mod, including the Read Me file. Deleting it will have absolutely no effect on your computer.
[Partial Un-installation]
If you want to un-install only some of the mods within Aslain's Mod Pack, you have two options.
Manually look through your res_mods folder and remove the un-wanted modifications Run Aslain's Mod Pack again, except de-selcect all of the mods that you do not want. Make sure that your desired mods are still selected, and then run a Clean Installation. This will remove the un-wanted mods, and will re-install the mods that you want to keep.
[in-Game Crashes and Freezes]
If you are experience crashes and/or freezes in-game, there is most likely a conflict with some of the mods that you have installed.
For example, if you install several different sound mods of the same type, an internal conflict error may occur and cause your game to crash.
The sound mods are most likely responsible for any freezing that you will experience; especially GnomeFather's Sound Mod. Whilst known as a great mod, it is notorious for causing a screen-freeze for a few seconds whenever multiple tanks are spotted in the beginning of the battle.
If your game begins crashing, this is either caused by a mod conflict (perhaps a sound mod conflict, or a conflict with other mods you had previously installed, or your computer may have ran out of memory. If you heavily mod your Game Client, and put a lot of stress on your processor, your game (whilst uncommon) may crash. Sound mods and lighting mods usually are the causes of these kinds of crashes.
[Other Information]
If you are experiencing a problem with Aslain's Mod Pack, you should first try a Clean installation, as well as clear your World of Tanks and Installer Cache files. If this does not work, upload your CompList and Installer Text File, and someone may be able to help resolve your issue.
If you have pinned Aslain's European Forum Thread for download convenience, you should consider pinning Aslain.com instead, since Aslain has moved his download link here.
If I made any errors or missed something, please let me know; and I will fix it immediately!

You see me? Over here! Nope, over here now! Where are you looking; I'm right behind you! Once again, wrong spot; now here. Now there. I'm everywhere!
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the Cromwell, explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 10 Heavy Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Very mobile vehicle, almost as quick as light tanks
Great HP/ton ratio of 23.4; you'll easily be able to reach your top speed.
Good camo values
Great gun depression of 8 degrees; up to 100 degrees of traverse to either side of the turret
Good DPM of 2,165.93
Great reverse speed of 20 km/h; allows you to back off of ridges as necessary
Alright accuracy of .35, usually gets the job done
Very good APCR penetration of 202mm
Extremely quick turret traverse speed of 50.06 degrees/second
Good terrain resistance values, won't interfere with your mobility
Neutrals:
Alright penetration values with AP, at only 145mm.
Low per-shot alpha damage of 135, the tank relies on DPM rather than alpha
HP of 750. Nothing special.
20% chance of fire with a fairly large engine. Fires are possible, although not all that frequent.
Gun elevation of 15 degrees. Not great, but not terrible either
Alright tank traverse of 36 degrees/second. Not all that great of a value for a tank which is so similar to a light tank
360m view range. Nothing spectacular. Optics will help, but still is a bit lack-luster for such a mobile platform
Cons:
Very bad armor all around, even Tier 4's can easily penetrate you.
Horrendous gun handling stats in all regards
Can't mount a Vertical Stabilizer, so you're stuck with the appalling gun handling
Negative gun depression to the rear... meaning your gun cannot depress to the rear... in fact, it will elevate 2 degrees in the air. This means it's impossible to shoot at any vehicle to your rear, which can be devastating; especially when being chased.
Very poor shell velocity values, leading moving targets is a bit complicated
Very large and easy to damage ammo rack in the side. Any shell which hits it is more than capable of damaging the rack.
Aiming time of 2.21 seconds isn't bad on its own, but with the horrendous gun handling, it certainly will create problems
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Gun Rammer, Enhanced Gun Laying Drive and Coated Optics on the Cromwell. Improved Ventilation is also an option.
Recommended:
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should; regardless of the vehicle. Cromwell gets some really nice DPM with a Rammer.
Enhanced Gun Laying Drive: The gun handling is absolutely atrocious, and your aiming time is nothing spectacular. Since you can't mount a Stabilizer, you're stuck with those very poor values. If you need to stop to take a shot, the gun can take a very long time to aim in; often long enough to let the enemy relocate before you can get a shot off. An Enhanced Gun Laying Drive can help with this, but the Cromwell still struggles. Regardless, better than nothing.
Coated Optics: The Cromwell is a very mobile platform with quite a fair amount of camouflage. However, it has a very mediocre view range of only 360m. If you mount Optics, you won't be put at a disadvantage with the View Range, but you're still not going to be at any kind of advantage. Without Optics, the Cromwell loses any kind of scouting potential.
Optional:
Improved Ventilation: If you feel as though the Gun Laying Drive really doesn't do much for you, Vents are also an option. Alternatively, you could replace the Optics with Vents if you don't like to scout in the Cromwell. Either way, be careful. Replacing something for Vents may very well put you at a disadvantage with the Cromwell.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the Cromwell is 37 AP, 22 APCR and 5 HE.
The Cromwell's penetration with AP really isn't anything special, thus needs to carry a fair number of APCR rounds. The HE is practically useless, the only reason I currently have 5 HE rounds is because of the Scorpion's still lingering around. Once they become very rare again, I'll probably drop the HE count to 3; perhaps even down to 0.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the Cromwell, I use a Small First Aid Kit, Small Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Small First Aid Kit: Cromwell's crew occasionally dies, so a First Aid Kit should be used.
Small Repair Kit: The Cromwell's ammo rack is horrendously weak, and very easy to damage - having a Small Repair Kit to put it back into action is absolutely necessary.
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: Cromwell's engine is very large and fairly easy to hit. With a 20% chance of fire, you will be putting the Extinguisher to use every now and then.
Alternate:
Large Repair Kit: The ammo rack can be a huge issue at times, at least if you want to play aggressively. Replacing the First Aid Kit with a Large Repair Kit isn't a terrible idea. However, be warned that your crew will die every now and then; so it's a reward vs. risk assessment. Don't replace the Fire Extinguisher, otherwise you'll most likely end up regretting it.
Guns:
The Cromwell's gun is a very fast-firing 75mm. It relies entirely on DPM.
Below, I've compared the Cromwell's 75 mm to the VK 30.01 (D)'s 75mm. On the left is the Cromwell, on the right is the VK 30.01 (D). A blue value is superior, whilst a green value is relatively tied.
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 16.04 (14.22)
Aiming time: 2.21 (2.21)
Accuracy: .35 (.34)
DPM: 2,165.93 (1,919.81)
Penetration: 145/202/38 (150/194/38)
Damage: 135/135/175 (135/135/175)
Shell Velocity: 785/981/785 (925/1,156/925)
Soft Stats: .24/.24/.14 (.23/.23/.16)
Ammo capacity: 64 (79)
The verdict? The Cromwell's gun is practically identical to the VK 30.01 (D)'s gun, although it does excel in DPM. However, the clear contrast in shell velocity is also very visible. All in all, the differences balance out to make them fairly equivalent in effectiveness.
75mm Vickers HV:
The Cromwell's gun is a great DPM gun, excellent for picking apart opponents at close range, especially whilst circling them. Unfortunately, shooting on the move is exceptionally horrendous due to the poor gun handling; which also makes aiming take quite some time after initially stopping your vehicle. It's a fairly good gun, but has its very glaring flaws.
How to play it:
The Cromwell is a very mobile vehicle, but doesn't quite have the mobility nor camo of a light tank. It also has rather mediocre view range, thus even though it seems like it should be able to perform a good scouting role, it really can't come close to any light tank in that regard. However, Cromwell isn't just limited in that regard. Your very poor gun handling makes shooting on the move, even at fairly close ranges, very difficult. Cromwell essentially has to snipe, or circle vehicles at close ranges.
The Cromwell does have great mobility, and you certainly want to put it work. Shooting on the move isn't possible, so you'll have to wait for opportunities and try to flank vehicles at very close ranges, and circle them. Do be warned however - if you need to get away from a vehicle you're circling, shooting behind you is absolutely impossible. Your gun cannot depress at all to the rear, and in fact will raise itself in the air. This only further serves to limit the Cromwell's potential.
Essentially, you'll have to wait for the right opportunity to flank and circle an opponent. You must make sure that he has no backup, and you also must keep an eye out for the enemy's lights or mediums; as you don't want to let them begin chasing you away, as that will end very poorly for you. However, that's still not all. The Cromwell also has a very large and fragile ammo rack in the side, and very large engine in the rear. This makes circling opponents even the more risky, as if the opponent manages to get their gun caught up to you, your ammo may go out. In addition, being chased down by a vehicle is also even worse, as not only can you not return fire as you try to escape, but they can fairly easily take out your engine.
When top Tier, circling isn't all that necessary, as you typically can easily play a close range support role, or simply out-spot your opponents. However, when you're facing higher Tier vehicles, especially Tier 8's, your options are rather limited indeed. Not only will you find yourself needing to fire quite a few APCR rounds, but you also have severely restricted scouting abilities, lots of risks associated with trying to circle opponents, and a low pen DPM gun which you can't really put to use unless you're sniping at the sides of vehicles. Even then however, especially at longer ranges or against heavies, you still may very well need to fire APCR. And when you relocate, it takes so long to aim in originally, that sniping also is complicated unless you have someone spotting for you.
All in all, you have to stick with allies, capitalize on any opportunities you find and be very careful if you want to be able to circle vehicles and put the gun to optimal use. Otherwise, you very well may simply have to play a heavy sniping role until an opportunity arises. You can try scouting, although be aware that you're not going to be all that effective in that regard unless it involves popping over ridges.
Comparison to same-Tier Medium Tanks:
HP: Average. 750 HP is fairly average for a Tier 6 medium tank. It's nothing special, but not bad either.
Armor: Bad. Cromwell? It has armor? Hmm... strange, I never noticed it there. Your armor won't block much of anything; even a Luch's 3cm autoloader can punch through you fairly easily, even if you try to angle.
Mobility: Very Good. The Cromwell is the second-fastest Tier 6 medium tank. The Cromwell B is actually more mobile, due to significantly better terrain resistance values.
DPM: Very Good. The Cromwell has very good DPM, only surpassed by the A-43 and all 3 of the American mediums.
Penetration: Good. Cromwell's AP penetration is fairly mediocre. Your APCR penetration is very nice however.
Alpha damage: Bad. 135 alpha damage is very low for a Tier 6 medium. This is why the Cromwell relies on DPM rather than alpha.
Aiming Speed: Average. 2.21 second aiming time is very average for a Tier 6 medium. However, keep in mind that only one Tier 6 medium has a worse value than that... it's average, but at the same time close to the bottom.
Gun Handling: Very Bad. The Cromwell has the second worst gun handling out of all Tier 6 mediums, not including the Cromwell B. It makes shooting on the move exceptionally difficult, and even can severely complicate sniping.
Accuracy: Very Good. .35 accuracy is a rather good value, and tied for the fourth highest of all of the Tier 6 mediums.
Shell Velocity: Worst in Class. 785m/s shell velocity isn't just a very bad value, but actually the worst in class shell velocity. Your shells don't travel very quickly at all. Even the APCR feels rather sluggish for an APCR round.
View Range: Bad. 360m View Range is rather mediocre, and is also below average for Tier 6 mediums. However, considering the Cromwell's mobility, it suffers even more than some other vehicles with that poor View Range.
Camo Value: Very Good. The Cromwell has rather impressive camo values for a medium tank, although they do fall short if you want to fulfill a scouting role. You still can scout, although you really won't be all that effective.
Battle effectiveness: Good. The Cromwell all in all can make its impact on the battlefield. The gun's DPM and tank's mobility does give you quite a nice bit of potential. Unfortunately, many roles which you may want to snipe simply are very hard to fulfill due to the Cromwell's many downsides. Scouting is very limited due to mediocre camo values for a scouting role, rather mediocre view range and not all that great traverse speed. Flanking and circling vehicles is also complicated, as you have to do so at very close ranges if you want to hit your opponents due to your horrendously appalling gun handling. However, the traverse speed can also complicate things; which gives way to your fragile ammo rack and very large engine being shot at. In addition, if you need to get away from a tank you were trying to flank or circle, you won't be able to shoot at it; your gun can't depress at all to the rear, and in fact is pointing upwards! Also, retreating will make your engine an easy target. If you're escaping in a perpendicular path, then your ammo rack can be shot down, and you still can't really shoot at the enemy due to the horrendous gun handling. The Cromwell is a rather awkward vehicle, which seems as though it should have ridiculous potential, yet turns out to be limited just enough in practically every way to complicate any role you may want to take. Even if you want to try to snipe, the poor gun handling will once again find a way to complicate things. Cromwell either has to be really close or really far away. It either has to be sitting still and sniping, or up close with allies providing support fire.
Overall Rating:
6.5/10 (Good)
The Cromwell really isn't all that special of a vehicle. It's fast and has great DPM, good camo, reasonable accuracy and great APCR penetration. However, your AP penetration is subpar, your accuracy is put to waste with the horrendous gun handling. Your gun handling also takes a lot away from the mobility advantage, as you have to be very close up to your opponents if you want to be able to hit them reliably, if you intend to move around. Your mobility in theory should allow you to circle vehicles, however it's very risky due to a fragile ammo rack, large engine, traverse speed which isn't all that great for circling, and your absolute inability to shoot to the rear.
It's a tank which wants to have a lot of potential, but has just enough of various downsides in relation to those desired roles to complicate things. However, the Cromwell then has a multitude of crippling weaknesses which makes any of those potential maneuvers rather risky indeed. The tank seems to be one which should be able to scout, however in reality doesn't quite have the view range or camo. Circling vehicles seems like it should be an easy thing to do, although your exceptionally poor gun handling, negative gun depression to the rear (meaning gun can't depress, and in fact is stuck pointing up), fragile ammo rack and large engine means it's a high-risk tactic, and is best done with allies.
Close range support fire and peek-a-booming over ridges is really what the Cromwell is best at, but it needs allies. It should use the mobility to relocate, but attempting to circle vehicles is risky unless you have backup. Scouting is possible, but is also complicated and only should be done in smaller confines; of only portions of the map. Other than that, you can do a decent job of sniping; although you very well may need to shoot APCR.
All in all, the tank has a fair amount of potential, and can still do rather well in combat, although it can be very inconsistent or difficult to play at times. It's not a very forgiving vehicle, and its battle effectiveness honestly can be heavily influenced by RNG; whether or not you lose your ammo, engine, whether or not your shells can hit or not, and how the enemy sets up. Cromwell is best used as a support tank, and can do well, but is rather situational as well.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
(The queer British medium driving by!)

It is a bear, yet no ordinary Soviet vodka bear. Alas, no. It has none of the unpredictability of the Soviet's drunken bears in their stupors. Rather, as a German Premium, it has all of the reliability and consistency of the German's engineering. For it is a true beast amongst the battlefield.
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the Panzer 58 Mutz (German Bear), explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay (ff,ff,ff) and compare it to other Tier 8 Medium Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay (ff,ff,ff)
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Extremely high penetration power for a Tier 8 medium; especially for a Premium tank
Rather nimble with a top speed of 50km/h and a very reasonable traverse speed of 45 degrees/second
Incredibly low terrain resistance values; this allows the tank to very reliably reach its top speed in a rather short period of time
Reasonable accuracy of .35
Nice shell velocity of 1,000 m/s for the standard AP. Helps make hunting down your targets from a distance rather easy indeed.
Good reverse speed of 20km/h allowing you to back out of trouble as necessary
Great gun elevation and depression angles, with 25 degrees in elevation and 10 degrees of depression - makes shooting at opponents whilst using the terrain a breeze!
Neutrals:
Reasonable aiming time of 2.21 seconds
Alright hull traverse of 45 degrees / second. Whilst it's not disappointing like the CDC, it's not the quickest to turn either.
Decent enough armor on both the hull and turret. Whilst it's not necessarily reliable, there are actually quite a few areas on the front of the tank with auto-bounce angles or unusually high effective armor values.
Despite the very low chance of fire of only 12%, your fuel tanks are in the front of the tank. Having them damaged is a rather common occurrence. Luckily they don't get destroyed too often, but it certainly is a threat you have to be aware of. Sometimes, especially if you're lower on HP, using a repair kit on your fuel tanks is a very viable option.
Alright View Range of 380m. You'll still be able to outspot a reasonable number of tanks if you have Coated Optics on, but don't rely on this to always be the case.
Rather reasonable camouflage values. With a camo crew, you can actually stay hidden very well at longer ranges, or when making proper usage of foliage as concealment.
Cons:
Mediocre gun handling stats. Whilst still better than the AMX CDC, they're not nearly as good as they are on the Pershing or Patton KR. Due to this tank's increased speed, this isn't that bad of a thing, but it's worth noting that you can't shoot on the move too reliably except at closer ranges.
Low HP pool of only 1,300 HP. Luckily, you have rather reasonable armor which will allow the 1,300 HP to last a lot longer than something such as the AMX CDC's 1,400 HP, but it still will run out rather quickly if you're caught out of position.
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Gun Rammer, Coated Optics and Vertical Stabilizer on the German bear.
Recommended:
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should. Give your German bear enhanced hunting capabilities!
Coated Optics: 380m of View Range isn't the greatest, but with Coated Optics and a good crew you can still reach the higher levels of View Range which you'd like. Having good View Range on the Mutz will greatly assist you with playing the longer-distance sniper / support fire role which the Mutz can adapt to. It can also really help with ridge-line peek-a-boom poking if you're doing so at longer distances.
Vertical Stabilizer: With a Vertical Stabilizer, the Mutz's gun handling becomes rather decent indeed. It's still not the greatest at on the move snapshots, but at closer to mid-distance ranges, it can still work out rather well indeed.
Optional:
Binocular Telescope: With 380m of View Range and a vehicle which enjoys longer-distance support fire, having a Binocular Telescope can also be a viable choice if you tend to play your Mutz a bit more passively.
Normally I say that Improved Ventilation is a reasonable alternative, however unlike the CDC, I feel as though the Mutz can make much better usage of holding distant ridge-line positions, thus enhancing your View Range very well may come in handy in many, many situations. I really don't feel as though the sight increase to gun handling is worth the loss of such a boost to View Range.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the German Bear is 35 AP, 10 APCR and 3 HE.
The Mutz's gun is simply glorious to have on a Premium tank. Not only do you have great penetration values with your standard AP rounds, but they come with very nice shell velocities as well. Combine this with a rather nice combination of accuracy, aiming time and gun handling, and you end up with a gun which very rarely will ever need to load Premium shells.
In approximately 60% of my battles in the Mutz, I don't shoot any APCR. In approximately 30%, I use no more than 1-3 rounds. In 7%, I don't use any more than 5 rounds. It's very, very rarely, typically in clutch-carry situations where I ever use any more than 5 APCR rounds. I don't think I've ever used the full 10 rounds of APCR I carry - the Mutz simply doesn't need them.
If you want to reduce your APCR count, you can very well drop it down to 7 rounds, and that should be more than enough to cover 99% of your battles.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the Mutz, I use a Small First Aid Kit, Small Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Small First Aid Kit: Part of a fairly standard consumable layout, the Mutz doesn't really have any special needs for consumables. I wouldn't necessarily recommend replacing it with anything however, even if you have Jack of All Trades; simply due to the smaller, more compact size of the vehicle with only alright armor. Losing crew is still a possibility, although it won't occur very often.
Small Repair Kit: Interestingly enough, unlike most of the tanks in my Garage, the repair kit on the Mutz is not used for my tracks or even for the ammo rack (which can sometimes be damaged on the Mutz; not nearly as often on the AMX CDC, but it still can happen). In fact, the repair kit actually finds very often usage on my Fuel Tanks. The Fuel Tanks on the Mutz are in the front of the tank, and can be damaged every now and then. Whilst this usually doesn't result in a fire, the fact that it is a possibility, I often find myself using a repair kit on my Fuel Tanks when I'm between 20%-40% of my HP, just as a safe-guard. In the 20%-40% range, even with an Automatic Fire Extinguisher, a tick of fire damage has the potential to make the difference between surviving or not. Thus in carry situations, I do use my repair kit on my Fuel Tanks, so long as my ammo rack isn't damaged or that I don't feel as though it will really be needed for my ammo rack or tracks.
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: Frontal Fuel tanks means that despite the 12% chance of engine fire, you can still be set on fire if you're caught ouf of position. Typically, the Mutz's play(ff,ff,ff) means that you won't be shot in the front of the hull in the fuel tanks overly often, but the fact that it's a possibility is enough for me to keep an Automatic Fire Extinguisher rather than food.
Alternate:
Chocolate: Aside from Premium / standard versions of the 3 above consumables, your only possible alternative on the Mutz which is available is Chocolate. If you really feel comfortable with your fuel tanks, you could replace the Automatic Fire Extinguisher with Chocolate. The same could be done to replace the Med Kit with Chocolate, although you have to have Jack of All Trades trained on your Commander as a safe-guard if you choose to do so.
Guns:
The Mutz's gun is a very reliable 90mm. Personally, I view it as one of the most competitive guns on a Tier
Below, I've compared the German Bear's 90mm to the AMX CDC's 90mm. On the left is the German Bear, on the right is the Baguette. A blue value is superior, whilst a green value is relatively tied (Within 5% of the other value). (Please note that all values are "stock", prior to any equipment mounting)
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 7.82 (8.57)
Aiming time: 2.21 (2.11)
Accuracy: .35 (.33)
DPM: 1,877.14 (2,057.14)
Penetration: 212/259/45 (212/259/45)
Damage: 240/240/320 (240/240/320)
Shell Velocity: 1,000/1,250/1,000 (1,000/1,250/1,000)
Soft Stats: .18/.18/.10 (.20/.20/.16)
Gun Angles: -10 / +25 (-10 / +20)
Ammo capacity: 48 (90)
The verdict? The AMX CDC has a slight advantage in DPM and accuracy, whereas the Mutz has a slight advantage in gun handling. The Mutz has significantly more gun elevation, but the AMX CDC has significantly more ammo capacity.
Ultimately, the two guns are both equally competitive. However, the Mutz's gun is on a better platform than the CDC's is in order to be put into continual use. The CDC's gun is already one of the best guns at the Tier, the fact that the Mutz's gun is just as competitive but on an even better platform for performance, this means that the Mutz's gun really does stand out amongst its peers as one of the most competitive ones.
9 cm Kanone:
A gun name that isn't ridiculously hard to say and actually makes sense? Gasp! The Mutz's gun is extremely reliable and extremely competitive. You are given a vehicle with great penetration, standard alpha damage, great shell velocity, very good accuracy, good aiming time and reasonable gun handling. You also have amazing gun depression and gun elevation values.
All of these things combined make you the perfect ridge-line warrior, support vehicle or long-distance sniper. Whatever you need to do, the Mutz has a gun which can help you get the job done. The one thing you won't be able to do is out-DPM or out-trade most opponents. However, if the Mutz is played correctly, you should be able to do far more damage to the enemy than you take in return.
Using ridge-lines and putting in a shell each time an enemy is on reload, popping in a shot whenever an enemy moves, turns or is distracted, even peek-a-booming against slower to aim vehicles all can be done very well indeed, especially when your gun elevation and depression angles are put into good usage. You have a wonderfully reliable gun - put it to good use!
How to play it:
The Mutz is an extremely flexible medium tank. It has everything which the Pershing or CDC dream to have. You have all of the flexibility of the Pershing, but even more mobility. When compared to the CDC, you have all of its ridge-line warrior capabilities, except you have armor which can actually keep you alive, along with better module and crew survivability. Essentially, imagine yourself as a more flexible Pershing, or a more forgiving CDC.
With your great gun elevation and depression angles, along with great gun stats and reasonable soft stats, the Mutz is a perfect ridge-line warrior. When you are able to use ridge-lines to peek-a-boom at the enemy, to poke ridges without getting shot at, to provide continual support fire in between enemy's reloads or capitalizing upon any moments in which they're distracted, you will excel on the battlefield.
If you can't use ridge-lines as effectively as you'd like, you still have a lot of potential with simply peek-a-boom support fire engagements. The gun is very reliable indeed, and the Mutz has more than enough mobility to be able to minimize its exposure time extremely effectively. Simply wait for your opportunity, poke out and take a well-aimed shot and then pull right back into cover.
On the subject of mobility, you have a lot of flexibility on the battlefield. If you need to relocate to a better firing location, push up with your allies or perhaps even cross the map, the Mutz is more than capable of doing so. Make sure that you don't forget about your great mobility advantage over most over vehicles, and put that to good use!
All in all, make sure that you're using what gives the Mutz its flexibility to its maximum potential. Make great usage of your mobility, and keep putting your gun into effect whenever possible. The one key thing to avoid doing is allowing yourself to get shot at, or to rely on your armor - even when hull-down, the Mutz by no means has "reliable" armor. In general, except shells which hit you to penetrate when you're playing - by doing as such, when your armor does come into effect, it should be able to surprise you with quite a few lucky bounces. When the tank is played properly, especially when using ridge-lines, the armor can certainly help forgive some mistakes and keep you alive for longer. You can't hull-down like the Pershing can, but you aren't butter as the AMX Baguette is.
Comparison to same-Tier Medium Tanks:
HP: Good. 1,440 HP is a good value for a Tier 8 medium tank. With some decent armor, especially on the turret & gun mantlet, you can pull off a few good bounces to help preserve your hitpoints throughout the battle as well. You'll make better usage of the 1,440 HP than quite a handful of other mediums would.
Armor: Average. The Mutz's armor is not something which should be relied upon by any means, although it does have an abundance of auto-bounce angles as well as patches of thicker values of armor. You can get some nice bounces every now and then, especially when playing the Mutz as it should; a true ridge-line warrior. In comparison to other Tier 8 mediums, the armor is fairly average.
Mobility: Very good. The Mutz may not be as quick as the AMX CDC, but it certainly is one of the faster Tier 8 mediums. The top speed is really the only real limiting factor to the Mutz's mobility, aside from the alright hull traverse speed. With the great HP/ton you have, coupled with some really incredible terrain resistance values, the Mutz can certainly get around the battlefield extremely efficiently.
DPM: Average. The Mutz's DPM is fairly average for a Tier 8 mediums. Obviously, it doesn't come anywhere close to the Obj. 416's incredible DPM, but seeing as how that's a single, extreme outlier the Mutz's DPM isn't actually all that bad. It ranks 12th out of 23 Tier 8 medium tanks for DPM.
Penetration: Very Good. The Mutz has one of the best penetration values for Tier 8, just barely being beat by the STA-1, Centurion 1 and FV4202. You have more than enough penetration power to reliably go through the enemy's armor with standard AP rounds.
Alpha damage: Average. 240 alpha damage is standard for a 90mm gun; not much else to say here.
Aiming Speed: Very Good. 2.21 second aiming time is tied for 3rd for aiming time, tied with 6 other vehicles. With reasonable gun handling for the mobility, the Mutz can pull of shots in a relativity short period of time.
Gun Handling: Good. The German Bear is tied with 2 other vehicles for 8th out of 23 in gun handling. Considering the mobility of the Mutz, the gun handling is actually rather nice indeed. Don't rely on pulling off on-the-move snapshots at long ranges, but at mid to close ranges you can actually have some reasonable success with snap shots as necessary. Your gun handling during turret traverse is incredibly good, which makes switching between targets whilst sniping very quick and effective indeed.
Accuracy: Good. .35 accuracy is a pretty good value, also tied for 8th place out of all 23 Tier 8 mediums. You should be able to pull of shots rather nicely indeed at distance, and can easily snipe whenever necessary.
Shell Velocity: Very Good. A 1,000 m/s shell velocity is one of the better values for Tier 8 mediums; tied for 4th place with 4 other vehicles. Such a shell velocity should make sniping at targets from a distance rather enjoyable indeed, and you should be able to connect your shells without giving the enemy an opportunity to change their angling / direction of travel, as may occur with some other vehicles with lower shell velocities.
View Range: Average. Whilst there are quite a few Tier 8 mediums with 390m or 400m of View Range, there are also quite a few vehicles tied for 380m, and even a few vehicles with less. With Coated Optics or a Binocular Telescope, you should still be able to make great usage of your View Range without too much trouble. Luckily, you're a vehicle which can actually make good usage of your View Range, unlike some other vehicles such as the T69 which have a lot of View Range but don't necessarily need it.
Camo Value: Very Good. The Mutz actually has some rather nice camouflage values indeed. Not only is the tank reasonably small, but it comes with a built-in camouflage bonus due to the fact that you cannot apply standard camouflage to the vehicles. If you train your crew in Camouflage, you can remain hidden at many mid to long distances, especially if you're making good usage of concealment. This is yet another nice aspect of the Mutz when comparing it to the AMX CDC; despite your lower View Range, you can typically make just as equal effective usage of longer distance combat as the CDC.
Battle effectiveness: Very Good. Personally, I would rank the Mutz as second for battle effectiveness, tied with the Pershing. The only vehicle which I believe can have an even larger impact on its standard battles, Match-Making spread included and factored in, is the Obj. 416. Even then, the Mutz is an incredibly capable vehicle even when comparing it to the Obj. 416. You have everything you could really want from a medium tank. Very good mobility, good gun handling and good gun stats, great penetration, accuracy and shell velocity, fairly good crew and module durability and survivability, great gun depression and elevation and even some armor to work with. The Mutz has a great combination of mobility, gun performance and armor. When comparing it to the Pershing, you sacrifice some armor for enhanced mobility, and sacrifice some gun handling for some penetration power. Thus it only makes sense that the Mutz would be tied with the Pershing for battle effectiveness. You can flank, you can spot, you can snipe, you can provide support fire, use ridges, peek-a-boom, etc. The Mutz can do just about some of everything, which makes for a very wonderful tank indeed; especially when you consider that it's a Premium vehicle.
Overall Rating:
9.5/10 (Exceptional)
Despite ranking the Mutz approximately in the same place as the Pershing in terms of battle effectiveness, the Mutz has one advantage which the Pershing doesn't - the Mutz is a Premium vehicle! As a Premium vehicle, this is without a doubt one of the best Premiums, if not the best, which you can get at Tier 8. It truly has something for everyone, and is able to print out amazing Credits whilst carrying battles like a boss.
In terms of the Mutz's play(ff,ff,ff), the Mutz can do almost anything. It can shift around the map, flank, use ridge-lines, snipe, out-spot opponents, provide support fire, etc. For a support medium, the Mutz does the job better than most other mediums. Regardless of the Match-Making, there is no reason to not be able to contribute rather decently in a battle.
As for the Mutz's downsides, the only real issues are the frontal fuel tanks (which aren't as much of a problem as you'd except, as fires are fairly rare in the Mutz), fairly poor hull-armor (although having several auto-bounce angles, the ability to wiggle / angle it against some guns, and even a 200mm ram plate), and mediocre DPM (which is just about entirely made up for by the other great characteristics of the gun). For a Premium vehicle, the Mutz doesn't have nearly as many downsides as you may except it to.
The Mutz is a Jack of All Trades. Whilst it may not specialize in any one thing in particular such as some other mediums do, you can do some of everything, just as the Pershing. The one thing you do alternate however, is sacrificing some armor for better mobility without killing the hull-down potential of the vehicle. This allows for an enhanced degree of flexibility of the battlefield, as you can relocate and re-position to a more advantageous position even more easily than the Pershing.
As a regular tank, I'd give it an "8.5" rating just as I did with the Pershing. However, when you factor in that it's a Premium vehicle (which typically is worse than top-end tanks of the Tier), it's actually very impressive to see such a competitive vehicle. It certainly isn't over-powered by any means, and isn't "too good" for a Premium vehicle, but it is actually a high-performing vehicle. Now you can carry matches and grind plenty of Credits all in one fun way!
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
This Tank Review was made possible by TheBigBucket [N1NJA]. A massive thank you and shout-out to you for gifting me this vehicle!
(The German bear in all of its glorious. Looks like there is Mutz fun to be had! I know, I'm terrible at puns.)

Welcome, and do not fret. I see that you are lost and confused, in need of guidance and support. Lucky for you, thou have stumbled into the Scorpion's Den. Aside from venomous arachnids, you shall find guides a-plenty within this humble abode.
Over the past couple of years in which I've been playing WoT, I've been cranking out guides in hopes of providing a valuable resource for players which are seeking to learn. Some of the guides are fairly simple and directed more-so towards newer players. Other guides however are rather quite complex, and may provide benefit to even seasoned veterans.
As time passes and I create more guides, I shall add on to the compilation below. Guides from other members of the Forums, and various websites / tools which I find to be very useful have also been linked here.
If these are the drones you were looking for and you are intent on staying, then sit back, turn on some pimping music and read away... all your questions shall be answered here.
My personal collection of guides:
Game Mechanics:
The miracle of auto-aim
Battle Positions
Ammunition
Spotting Mechanics
Shot Trapping
Sky Lining, and why you should avoid it
A (Detailed) Guide to Equipment
The Ultimate Light Tank & Scouting Guide
Tanks:
IS-3 Weakspots
IS-6 Weakspots
MT-25 Review
StuG III G Review
Charioteer Review
O-I Experimental Review
59-Patton Review
KV-5 Review
WT auf E-100 Review
Sherman Jumbo Review
Pz. Sfl. IVc Review
FV4005 Review
113 Review
T110E5 Review
Cromwell Review
AMX CDC Review
Pershing Review
M41 Walker Bulldog Review
Panzer 58 Mutz Review
WZ-111 Review
Maps:
This section appears to be empty. Sad. Fear not however! It shall be added to very, very soon!
Good Sportsmanship:
Do not judge a player based off of their stats
Rage, False Accusations, etc.; and why they are bad.
Other:
A Guide to Aslain's Modpack (How it affects FPS, extra info, etc.)
Survival Guide to Match-up Melee Tournaments
Uploading Images to the WoT Forums
General Overview of Tips and Hints which I recommend
Going AFK with minimal effect on your team
A compilation of guides from other players:
"Welcome to World of Tanks" - spectacular guide to the interface of the game for those who just installed the game
Lert's Collection of Guides - A spectacular compilation of guides for newer players
Tazilon's Website (Contains good overviews of scouting for various maps, techniques to use, etc.)
Tazilon's YouTube Channel (For video scouting guides)
WoT Guru (Player-run Weakspot guide website)
The Tanker's Handbook (100+ pages of spectacular information)
QuickyBaby's YouTube Channel (He has some great tank reviews there, and offers good gameplay tips as well)
KingAlphyn's Noob Friendly Tips (For beginning players, a good overview about some of the "Do"s and "Don't"s of WoT.
Will add more as I find them / as people suggest them. If there's something you feel as though I should definitely link here, tell me in a comment below and I shall add it!
Other valuable resources / links often used:
World of Tanks Wiki
WoT Scout (Tournament Progress Tracker)
Team Speak 3 (Voice Communication Platform, most Clans require this)
Tank Inspector (Great tool for examining armor layouts, "soft" stats of a tank, etc.)
WoT Compare (Website for comparing the stats of tanks)
WoT Info (Great site for stats access, camo value calculation, etc.)
WoT Labs (Most commonly used site for tracking player statistics)
VB Addict (Somewhat of an all-in-one information site for WoT)
WoT Replays (Great place to upload your WoT replays, and watch other's replays as well)
Rita Status Report Blog (Un-official, "leaked" leads about possible WoT development in the future)
QuickyBaby's Replay Site
Aslain's Modpack and Forums (My personal favorite modpack, I also upload guides there on the Forums under "Guides and Tutorials" )
XVM official website (XVM Stat mod, you have to activate statistics here if you want them to show in-game, if you use XVM)
WoT Labs Forums (Great place to ask others for help, lots of skilled players hang around there)
Will add more as I find them. If you have any suggestions on more sites to link here, let me know!
Additional Links for Easy Access:
World of Tanks Website
World of Tanks Official Forums
Customer Support
Gift Shop
Clans Page
"Refer a Friend" Program
Clan Wars Global Map
eSports and Tournaments
WGLNA on TwitchTV
WoT's YouTube Channel
Imgur (Needed for uploading images to the Forums)
TinyPic (Another option for uploading images to the Forums)
TargetDamage (Nice weakspot & expected damage site)
WoTHelp (Site with various tutorials)
Will add more as they are suggested.
Popular and / or very good YouTube Channels & TwitchTV Streamers:
Anfield's Twitch
Sela's Twitch
QuickyBaby's Twitch & YouTube
Jingle's YouTube
TheFochYou (Sir Foch)'s YouTube
Capt. Canada's YouTube
Zeven_NA's Twitch
JunkersHiryu's Twitch
Please tell me which other channels to mention here... I don't follow Twitch or YouTube very often, so there are a lot of channels I do not know of, which very well deserve to be linked here.
I would like to mention that some of my guides linked above are on the old side. I will go through all of the guides within this Thread soon, and update them with more accurate and up-to-date information. Most of the content within the guides is still very viable, some of it merely needs some revising.
I genuinely wish you all the best of luck and fun, both in-game and in real life. I hope this collection of guides and other links proves to be useful. As long as I can help others, it's all worth it. =)

Hey Aslain,
Could you please add XVM's "old and outdated" color scale back in? I've been a firm believer that the new / current one is far too lenient on players with the skill designations, and I've always enjoyed using the "outdated" version, as it was the most accurate version in my opinion.
Alternatively, if you could provide the image you used to have in the installer of that color scale, I could (hopefully) change the scheme (albeit I'll need to figure out how to do that, as I've not needed to do so in a while).
Thank you for your time,
Scorpiany

Cookies and death rays! Get your cookies and death rays here! Also have British monocles and Cuban cigars here, but get your cookies and death rays here!
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the FV4005, explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 10 Tank Destroyers. Let's get started, shall we?
***Please note that from this point on in the guide, I may refer to the FV4005 as "Top Hat" or "Ol' Brit"; in connection with the image at the end. ^-^***
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Highest alpha damage on any non-artillery in the game, and more alpha damage than the Bat-Chat 155 58 and Obj. 261. Scary, really.
With HESH, can one-shot every Tier 8, almost every Tier 9 and even a handful of Tier 10's, assuming the shell penetrates.
5.05 m splash radius; can damage multiple tanks in one shot, or damage tanks with near misses.
Has a pseudo-turret which turns 45 degrees in either direction
Incredible penetration with the AP at 310, with 1,150 alpha damage to boot - this makes the AP even more dangerous than the German death star, and very comparable to the Obj. 261's AP
Good terrain resistance values, almost half of what's on the FV215b 183; which allows for much better acceleration and traversing
Good track traverse speed of 30 degree/second for the kind of cannon on the tank. Good terrain resistance values only helps further with track traverse
Surprisingly good accuracy of .36, makes the gun fairly reliable when aimed in
Rather quick aiming time considering the caliber of the gun, at only 2.88 seconds.
Good DPM with either shell, with equipment can reach 2,725.32 with AP and 4,177.22 with HESH
Neutrals:
Reasonable gun depression of 5 degrees. Not great, but not terrible either.
Reasonable soft stats for such a large caliber gun. With the good aiming time and accuracy, you'll get your reticle onto the target fairly quickly
Alright view range at 390m. The tank is either fighting at close ranges or sniping at exposed targets though, so the view range doesn't really matter
Acceptable shell velocity of 830m/s - better than the Obj. 261's without a doubt, despite having an entirely superior gun
Turret traverse is only 12.51 degrees/second, although alternatively this brings your turret traverse soft stats down, which is actually fairly important for such a high caliber gun
12 round ammo capacity may seem very low, but the gun does so much damage per shot that it usually doesn't have any real ammo problems
Crew and modules are vulnerable to HE, but will easily resist regular shells
The tank is very tall, although this gives you the advantage of being able to shoot into hull roofs and turret roofs.
Cons:
The tank is very large, easy to hit
Hull armor won't do much other than block HE shells and bounce a few shells at strange angles
Turret has 14mm of tissue paper all around. At least your crew has something to blow their nose with.
Very limited gun elevation of only 8 degrees. This can be a very annoying thing
Low HP of only 1,850. The minimal armor makes this problem worse
Vulnerable to HE shells, as can be expected with any tank with such little armor (crew does a much better job at surviving than something such as the waffle though)
Very expensive HESH shells, at $8,000 apiece. I suppose this is expected from a 183mm cannon though. AP shells are also quite pricy, at $2,250 apiece
Limited forwards and reverse speeds, at only 35 km/h fowards and 12km/h backwards. You will reach your top speed at a rather quick rate, unlike the FV215b 183 thanks to your good terrain resistance values, although once you reach that speed, you're stuck with it - can be rather limiting.
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Improved Ventilation, Gun Rammer and Enhanced Gun Laying Drive on Ol' Top Hat. Other equipment could be considered, but is situational.
Recommended:
Improved Ventilation: Ol' Top Hat makes rather good usage of the Ventilation, even though the gun handles fairly well for a 183mm as it is, Vents do give it a nice touch.
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should; regardless of the vehicle. Ol' Top Hat is fine with it, so long as you have some tea as well.
Enhanced Gun Laying Drive: A 2.88 second aiming time may be very good for a 183mm cannon, but improving it with an Enhanced Gun Laying drive will give your gun more consistency, which is an important thing for a vehicle with such a hard-hitting gun.
Optional:
Coated Optics: Coated Optics Monocoles will bring your view range up to 445m with the Ventilation, which is always nice. However, I don't really think this is the kind of tank that should be spotting things on its own, thus only use these if you feel as though it's necessary, or as though the GLD isn't doing much for you. You can replace Vents or GLD, whichever you feel like.
Binocular Telescope: Ol' Top Hat has 390m of View Range, which with Binoculars, will be enough to spot tanks at a distance. If you find yourself sniping with that .36 accuracy, Binocs may occasionally come in handy. However, even though you can snipe, you should be spending more time up close rather than from afar. Replace Vents or GLD if you mount Binocs, likely Vents; as you'll want the GLD effect to make sniping easier.
Darth Vader: If you're going to operate a Death Star, may as well have Darth Vader on board. He probably knows its functionality a bit better than you do.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the FV4005 is 10 HESH, 2 AP.
In general, the HESH will give you far better usage of the gun than the AP would - if you're going to shoot AP, why not just use the Jg.Pz.E-100? With HESH, you can one-shot any Tier 8, quite a few Tier 9's and even a handful of Tier 10's (especially Russian mediums). If you don't penetrate the tank, you'll still usually do 500-900 damage with splash. Also, regardless of whether or not you penetrate, you'll do rather significant internal module and crew damage to your opponents.
The only time to shoot AP is if you know you're going to be shooting something such as an E-100, which you can't penetrate with HESH. However, if the E-100 is angling well, your HESH will still do a healthy amount of damage, and kill a couple of crew members.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the FV4005, I use a Small Med Kit, Small Repair Kit and Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Small Med Kit: Standard with practically every tank in the game. Ol' Top Hat doesn't even need a Large kit, as the crew is not allergic to the interior of the tank, unlike something such as the Waffle
Small Repair Kit: Once again, standard consumable. If your Top Hat has a hole in it, wouldn't you want to patch it?
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: Your Extinguisher actually is a pressurized bottle of tea. Since Ol' Top Hat isn't all that flamable, you could consider replacing your pressurized tea canister with Pudding and Tea, to cheer up your jolly good crew.
Guns:
Ol' Top Hat has acquired Darth Vader's Death Star's laser, and has equipped it as it's own weapon. This makes the gun more dangerous to get hit by than almost any arty's. The closest match to Ol Top Hat's 183mm is the FV215b 183's 183mm.
Below, I've compared the two guns. On the left is Ol' Top Hat, on the right is the Original Deathstar 1.0. Blue is a superior value, whereas green is an approximately tied value.
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 2.09 (2.09)
Aiming time: 2.88 (3.26)
Accuracy: .36 (.38)
DPM: 2,398.57 (2,398.57)
Penetration: 310/230/92 (310/230/92)
Damage: 1,150/1,750/1,750 (1,150/1,750/1,750)
Shell Velocity: 830/830/830 (830/830/830)
Soft Stats: .32/.32/.34 (.26/.26/.40)
Ammo capacity: 12 (12)
Gun Arc Limit: 45/45 45/45
The verdict? Ol' Top Hat may look friendly, and he really is to most people, but if you cross onto his bad side - he may just one-shot you. Also, compared to the FV215b 183's gun, Ol Top Hat's weaponry is more accuracy and aims in rather decently more quickly. The soft stats on hull movement are worse, but that's because Ol' Top Hat gets around a lot more quickly, and turns more quickly. Turret traverse soft stat is better, but that's only because he likes to enjoy the scenery and turn his turret a bit more slowly.
183mm L4:
The 183mm L4 is actually a 182mm gun. Because logic and all. Anyways, Ol' Top Hat's gun boasts incredible penetration and alpha damage with the AP, and decent penetration yet mind-blowing alpha damage with HESH. The HESH is capable of one-shotting a lot more tanks - you could very well one-shot at least one tank in every battle you play. The gun also has rather good aiming time for a 183mm (182mm), and has surprisingly good accuracy. This gives you decent sniping capabilities, and you should have no problem hitting tanks where you want to up close. The accuracy is perfect for penetrating those poor M103's in their checkerboard armor of "weakpoint" / "strongpoint".
To get a good understanding of what Ol' Top Hat is capable of doing to your tank - imagine an artillery, say the Obj. 261. Now imagine it with over double the penetration, 50 more alpha, a third of the aiming time, half the dispersion (double the accuracy), double the shell velocity and a 3mm greater caliber. That is the FV4005's 183mm. A gun so good, it makes an artillery's cannon look weak.
How to play it:
Ol' Top Hat is quite a fine ol' chap, although a bit shy; and a bit allergic too. You see, whenever you try to communicate with him, he pokes around a corner, sneezes out of allergies, and pokes right back behind.
That's how you should play the FV4005 - get close to the action, stick with a few allies, and peek-a-boom. As soon as an enemy is distracted or reloading, you can put a massive 183mm shell into it's tank. If something is trying to side-scrape, just pop a shell into or between its tracks - you'll do 500-600 damage to the tank just by hitting the tracks, and likely still kill some crew. If the tank is low HP and holding a corner, you can always put a HESH round into the ground next to it - assuming the tank has little enough HP, or isn't very armored, you should be able to kill it just like an arty could.
Most importantly however, support your allies. You have a fair amount of mobility - use it. Shoot at enemies which your allies need shut down, and provide that continuous 183mm support fire. It's a mutual-benefit relationship - you need your ally's HP and armor to take the hits, and they need your accurate death laser to tear the enemy down.
Comparison to same-Tier Tank Destroyers:
HP: Very bad. 1,850 HP is very low for a Tier 10 TD, especially for one with so little armor. At least you're not the waffle, your tank's HP is entirely it's own; whereas the waffle sucked all of the HP out of its crew for the 2,000 the tank has. Too many calories perhaps?
Armor: Very bad. Your hull may get the occasional strange bounce or shot-absorption, but beyond that, you'll be penetrated by anything and everything. Your turret also will be penetrated by all HE shells that come at it. Somehow though, it manages to remain thicker than the waffle's.
Mobility: Good. Ol' Top Hat is reasonably mobile for a Tier 10 TD. The acceleration and top speed are "average", but the track traverse is "Very Good"; thus it balances out to be "Good".
Penetration: Best in class. The penetration on Ol' Top Hat's AP round is the best out of any AP round on any Tier 10 TD. Your HESH also has ridiculously good penetration for essentially being a giant HE shell.
Alpha damage: Best in class. 1,750 alpha damage with HESH would be "Average" for a Tier 10 artillery. For a Tier 10 TD, it's simply unheard of. Even the AP with 1,150 damage has the best damage out of any AP round (and also would be "Average" for artillery AP&quot. Artillery cannons on TD's for the win!
Aiming Speed: Bad. Even though 2.88 second aiming time would be considered "bad" for a Tier 10 TD, you do have to keep in mind that this is a 183mm cannon with 1,750 alpha damage. 2.88 seconds is the same as on the Foch, and is also significantly better than the FV215b 183's aiming time.
Accuracy: Very bad. .36 accuracy statistically is "Very Bad" for a Tier 10 TD. However, it still is better than the FV215b 183's 183mm, which has the exact same gun. Also, considering this gun is entirely superior to the gun on the Obj. 261 (which is a Tier 10 artillery of all things), .36 accuracy is actually pretty damn good.
Shell Velocity: Average. 830 m/s shell velocity is "Average" for a Tier 10 TD. It does contribute to making sniping a bit difficult with this tank (that, and the long aiming time), although it's not terrible. Did I mention it's twice as good as the shell velocity on the Obj. 261, the Tier 10 artillery with an inferior gun? =P
View Range: Best in class. 390m is technically "Best in class", although 5 other Tier 10 TD's are tied for this title as well, so don't feel too happy about it.
Camo Value: Very bad. Ol' Top Hat likes everything big. Bit hats, big guns, big tanks. He wants to be noticed... thus, you don't really have any feasible camo value. (When someone asks though, you can always say it's almost 20 times better than the waffle's... you may have 1% for camo, but waffle has .06%)
Battle effectiveness: Strange. This tank is hilarious in it's own way, but in terms of battle effectiveness? Well, you're going to be dishing out a lot of damage and wrecking plenty of internal modules and crew members. However, the gun still can be a bit inconsistent. In terms of accuracy, the gun is actually rather reliable. Sure, you'll occasionally get some strange misses, but the accuracy is for the most part just fine. The biggest thing is the HESH round. Sometimes you'll do 600 damage to the tracks of a BatChat (true story), other times you'll penetrate the front of a Maus's turret for 2,000 HP (also true story). One shell you'll penetrate an IS-7's angled side from 700m away, right out of draw distance, firing blind, doing 1,700 damage to him (true story), other times you'll do 600 damage to one's overly-exposed lower plate (once again, true story). Essentially, it's an RNG box. Over the course of the battle, you'll do quite a bit. However, consistency wise? Egh. The tank looks for opportunities and uses them. Everything what the tank has going for it is the mobility (which is pretty good) and the antimatter artillery cannon (which is a giant RNG slot machine). So all in all - it depends. There will be battles when doing 8,000 damage in 5 shots was as easy as writing your name. Other times, doing 2k will be a challenge - have you sacrificed enough dissidence to SerB?
Overall Rating:
6.5/10 (Good)
Ol' Top Hat all in all is a rather good TD. It makes its impact by not only massive amounts of damage, but also by how quickly it eliminates enemies, by the internal module and crew damage it deals, by the way it breaks side-scraping as though it wasn't a real thing, and also by reacting to your ally's positioning. The tank primarily revolves around damage, but it has quite a bit more flexibility than something as the waffle. Even though waffle's gun is a lot more consistent, it's a one-dimensional machine. Ol' Top Hat gives another life to the battle.
Also, it's a 183mm cannon which is superior in every single way to a Tier 10 artillery's cannon (poor Obj. 261). Fair and balanced, comrade. One-shotting tanks is simply hilarious. Honestly, it's like the KV-2 of Tier 10, except with a significantly more accurate gun. And just like the KV-2, the only thing that really makes the tank "good" is what the gun is capable of. It's an RNG slot machine in many ways with the HESH rounds, but when the gun works, it does things so dirty that you feel as though you need to take a shower every time you click your mouse button. Sometimes the tank will work wonders, other times it will fail you. All in all, it balances out to usually have quite a decent impact on the battle.
Compared to the FV215b 183, Ol' Top Hat sacrifices all of the armor for a rather decent increase in accuracy, aiming speed and overall mobility. The lack of armor does take away a bit from what Ol' Top Hat is capable, but it's not devastating. As a TD, especially if you want to be able to carry with not only the gun presence, but also an armor presence, than the FV215b 183 is probably a better choice. However, that doesn't mean that Ol' Top Hat isn't good. Just not quite as good as the FV215b 183. Although, if you ever want to get your hands dirty with a 183mm cannon only (cannon only, ignoring armor and whatnot) FV4005 takes the cake (FV215b 183 still has the pie though); simply because of how it can get the gun onto target a lot faster (30 degree / second track traverse with good terrain resistance values will surprise some tanks) and because of the improved gun handling stats, allowing you to get a handful of dirty sniping shots in.
Good TD. FV215b 183 is better, but don't entirely discredit Ol' Top Hat - he's still quite the capable chap.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
(Ol' Top Hat says "Hi!" )

I is of friendly comrade, is all big mis of understandings. Come, we talk over borscht. Chinese tank? No no, is Stalin's glorious IS-3. You are mistaken comrade.
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the WZ-111, explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 8 Heavy Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Preferential MM spread; only sees up to Tier 9 battles.
Extremely effective frontal turret armor; practically impenetrable from the front by even the strongest of Tier 9 guns.
Very effective frontal hull armor, with great sloping which allows for quite a few bounces
Stalin-grade spaced side armor on the sides; allowing you to absorb shells with the void which is your side even with minimal angling if the enemy doesn't aim well.
Well well-angled side armor above the spaced armor, allowing for 165mm of effective armor flat on; increasing as you angle it more.
Great top speed limit of 50 km/h
Great gun elevation of 23 degrees; allowing you to make up for your lack of gun depression by backing up ridges and using your elevation to get shots instead.
Good HP pool of 1,550 HP; one of the highest of Tier 8 heavies.
Surprisingly good View Range of 380m. This is a great value for a Tier 8 heavy tank; especially for one which so closely resembles the IS-3.
Very profitable vehicle with a crew layout compatible with all other Chinese heavy tanks (including the 112!). This allows for not only great crew training when going down the Chinese line, but also good Credit earning as well. An "all-purpose" Premium so to speak.
Spectacular HEAT round with 250mm of penetration - that's more than enough to contest any vehicle you come across so long as you aim reasonably well.
Neutrals:
Reasonable DPM of 1,952.53
Alright HP/ton ratio of 11.76. While it certainly isn't great, it still allows you to get up to a decent speed in a relatively short period of time.
Good terrain resistances which allow you to get the speeds which are advertised in terms of HP/ton and top speed.
Cons:
Horrendous gun handling values; shooting on the move is extremely difficult even at close ranges.
Terrible accuracy of .44; sniping will have extremely limited success even at moderate ranges. Perhaps your gunner is Doug, and he keeps getting distracted by squirrels.
Very long aiming time of 3.23 seconds. May as well go make a cup of tea whilst letting your gun aim in.
Very poor AP penetration of only 175mm. Combine that with the terrible gun handling stats, and you'll have quite the hard time actually penetrating weakpoints.
Poor gun depression of only 5 degrees. 5 degrees isn't necessarily terrible, and it's consistent around the entire vehicle aside from having 3 degrees to the rear, but it's still rather limiting at times.
Extremely fragile ammo rack and engine. If you get hit in the side, expect your ammo rack to die. If you get hit in the rear, expect your engine to die. It's like clockwork. Artillery splashes can often times take both out of the battle as well.
Standard Chinese fuel tanks in the lower plate. They actually don't give you too much trouble though, if you play the vehicle properly.
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Gun Rammer, Enhanced Gun Laying Drive and Vertical Stabilizer on the WZ-111. The alternates are to reorder those 3 pieces of equipment. There is not other viable option for the WZ-111 when it comes to equipment.
Recommended:
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should. Your decent DPM will become rather reasonable indeed.
Enhanced Gun Laying Drive: The WZ-111 already takes 3.23 eternities to aim, combine that with .23 gun handling values and you end up with a gun which really needs something to boost its aiming speed. Even with a Gun Laying Drive it takes a very long time to aim, but it's certainly better than not having one.
Vertical Stabilizer: Regardless of whether or not you have a Vertical Stabilizer on the WZ-111, your gun handling will be atrocious. However, with an aiming time as long as the one on the WZ's, there's no reason not to mount a Stabilizer to help reduce the time spent aiming.
Optional:
Nothing: In theory, there could be an argument made for Coated Optics or Improved Ventilation. However, in practice, there's absolutely no reason to turn down the Enhanced Gun Laying Drive for other equipment. The benefit of being able to aim in 10% faster is very significant in comparison to any benefit you'd get from other equipment. It would also be a lot more practical and would constantly work towards addressing one of the major downsides of the vehicle.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on Stalin's WZ-111 is 27 AP, 15 HEAT and 3 HE.
The WZ-111 has an overrated potato launcher which uses chocolate flavoring powder instead of gun powder. However, the one thing which saves it from needing pure HEAT spam is the fact that it gets Preferential MM. Thus, you technically only need a few more Premium shells as you would in the IS-2. Regardless, I carry around 15 HEAT shells and actively use them.
Thanks to the penetration power, they still can be profitable. With the Premium vehicle bonus, even a healthy amount of HEAT can make you Credits.
Do be warned that HEAT can be a very unreliable shell. That being said, it's still great against IS-3's and tanks of the sort.
As for the HE rounds, anywhere from 3-5 rounds will suffice. It being a 122mm cannon, shooting an HE round at a side-scraping tank can have some effect. However, the real reason to carry HE is for the 530 damage with 61mm of penetration. That's almost enough to two-shot a Borsig, which can come in very handy in many circumstances if you're facing against a tank which the HE can actually penetrate.
Otherwise, AP is the primary shell you'll be using. Don't get too frustrated if half of your shells potato into absolutely nowhere, as that's simply what the WZ-111's gun will do. When the shells do hit however, the damage will accumulate very quickly.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the WZ-111, I (would) use a Small Repair Kit, Large Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher. (I say would because I don't like spending Credits on Premium consumables aside from Auto Extinguishers, thus I only carry one repair kit. If I had them stockpiled up however, I would switch without any question or doubt.)
Small Repair Kit: The WZ-111's ammo rack and engine are extremely fragile. It's very possible to lose both of them twice in a battle. A repair kit is an absolute must.
Large Repair Kit: The WZ-111's ammo rack and engine is so vulnerable to damage, that I carry two repair kits in the WZ. The amount of module damage you can take to those two modules is simply devastating if you're not able to put them back into action. Even artillery splashes can take out your engine; which is no surprise when you see that the engine only has 190 HP and the ammo rack only has 200 HP.
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: Frontal Fuel tanks means that despite the 12% chance of engine fire, you can still be set on fire if you're caught ouf of position. However, when played properly, the WZ-111's fuel tanks aren't too much of an issue; at least not as much as they are on some other Chinese tanks. If you're really feeling brave, you could replace the Automatic Fire Extinguisher for another Repair Kit, or perhaps food. However, this being a Premium vehicle which is to be used to make Credits, especially seeing as how you'll already be shooting a decent number of HEAT rounds, means that it would probably be a good idea to save on some Credits and avoid putting on Premium food.
Alternate:
Improved Combat Rations: If you're really feeling brave with your second repair kit or Auto Extinguisher, food is a possibility. However, this is a Premium vehicle to make money in - it already has too many "necessary" costs associated with it to really make Combat Rations a viable choice for anyone looking to make Credits.
Small First Aid Kit: It seems as though I have a habit of replacing my First Aid Kits in Chinese tanks. The crew in the WZ-111 very rarely dies in my experience, thus so long as you have Jack of All Trades, I don't see any real necessity to carry a First Aid Kit over a second repair kit. The repairs may very well be more necessary.
Guns:
The WZ-111's gun is a very outdated, Beta version model of a Potato Launcher which comes with some Stalium HEAT rounds. In fact, the gun is a slightly worse version of the IS-2's gun; which is a tank 1 Tier lower.
Below, I've compared the WZ-111's Vegetable Cannon to the 112's Vegetable Cannon. On the left is the WZ-111, on the right is the 112. A blue value is superior, whilst a green value is relatively tied (Within 5% of the other value). (Please note that all values are "stock", prior to any equipment mounting)
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 5.01 (4.74)
Aiming time: 3.26 (3.26)
Accuracy: .44 (.44)
DPM: 1,952.23 (1,848.70)
Penetration: 175/250/61 (175/250/61)
Damage: 390/390/530 (390/390/530)
Shell Velocity: 800/640/800 (800/640/800)
Soft Stats: .23/.23/.14 (.25/.25/.14)
Gun Angles: -5 / +23 (-6 / +17)
Ammo capacity: 45 (45)
The verdict? Both are terrible guns. 112 has an extra degree of gun depression, WZ-111 has a bit better gun handling stats and slightly better DPM. In general however, don't expect the WZ-111's gun to provide much of a noticeable difference over the 112.
The DPM's of the guns are decent. The HEAT rounds are pretty good. The alpha damage is very high and will rack up the damage fairly decently. This should allow you to make some very nice Credit values, even when shooting HEAT rounds.
122 mm D-25TA:
So much for easy to say gun names. Let's just call it the "potato launcher". The penetration is terrible. The gun handling is terrible. The accuracy is terrible. The aiming time is terrible. The shell velocity is, you guessed it, terrible! The only good things about the gun are the alpha damage, HEAT penetration and decent DPM.
Thus, how do you play the tank? You put it right in the enemy's face, you let the gun aim if you have a good shot and hope RNG is kind. Prioritize targets you can easily hit and easily penetrate. The damage racks up quickly, so put the tank close to the enemy and the accuracy shouldn't be too much of an issue.
In Tier 9 battles, you can still hull-down very well and side-scrape, but don't expect your gun to have much effectiveness with AP. Be ready to shoot some HEAT in Tier 9 battles, or look for cheeky shots on reloading enemies. Bait them into shooting you, then try to aim as good of a shot as you can. The damage will come your way when you use the tank's armor properly. It's kind of like an IS-6; let the armor work and the damage will come. There will always be a heavy RNG element to the gun; simply do everything you can to work around that.
How to play it:
The WZ-111 is actually a very competitive vehicle for a Tier 8 Premium, simply because of its incredible armor values. The turret is practically impenetrable from the front, the upper plate is rather well angled and your spaced side armor is something which would impress Stalin himself. Even the non-spaced parts of the sides are very well angles, giving you some rather nice effective armor values.
This means that for the most part, you can rely on your armor. Do be warned however, being penetrated in the sides or rear will often result in ammo rack on engine damage; respectively. In addition, your hull roof and turret roof are both only 25mm; resulting you in being extremely vulnerable to artillery shells or competent players face-hugging you and overmatching your roofs.
Whilst in general, there's good news for the armor, the same can't be said for the gun. Use your armor to bully around opponents and to bait shots, then put the gun to whatever usage you can find for it. It's certainly not the greatest weapon you could find, but it's somewhat standard for a Tier 8 Premium heavy tank with Preferential MM. Never try to snipe, let your gun aim in and try to get through the enemy's armor either using the raw caliber of your weapon or perhaps a few HEAT rounds. Do what you can to minimize RNG's effects on your shells (sticking close and aiming in), which is best done when your armor is used properly.
Whilst the WZ-111 can be a fairly independent vehicle when top Tier, in lower Tier battles it definitely needs backup, as the gun simply will not suffice. Play a supporting vehicle role in Tier 9 battles, play a more aggressive role in top Tier matches. Hull-down whenever possible, wiggle between reloads, side-scrape and reverse side-scrape to maximize your armor. Your armor is most effective against bad players or overly confident players who underestimate your armor's potential. If you engage the right opponents, you should be able to do wonders.
Comparison to same-Tier Heavy Tanks:
HP: Good. 1,550 HP is on the higher end of HP for Tier 8 heavy tanks. Whilst it may not come quite as close as the higher-end tanks (KV-4, KV-5 and O-Ho), it still has a good deal of hitpoints to allow it to take a few hits. The armor will make that HP last a good period of time as well.
Armor: Good. The WZ-111's armor is pretty good for a Tier 8 heavy tank. The one area where it does better than all other Tier 8 heavies however, is the magical spaced side armor. The spaced armor is so good, that it's better than the IS-3's black hole in terms of effective armor values. This results in some very effective side-scraping and side-hugging potential, or perhaps simply a good deal of forgiveness, especially when you're fighting against less experienced players.
Mobility: Very good. The WZ-111 may not necessarily be "agile", but it certainly is mobile. With a 50km/h top speed, good terrain resistances and a decent enough HP/ton ratio to allow you to get up to speed, you'll be able to flex around the battlefield as necessary for the most part.
DPM: Good. The WZ-111's DPM as a raw value is nothing impressive. Compared to other Tier 8 heavies however, it's on the better side of the scale; ranking 8th out of 19 Tier 8 heavy tanks.
Penetration: Very Bad. The only thing saving the WZ-111 from being ranked as "Worst in Class" for penetration values is the fact that the KV-5 is a thing. Otherwise, the AP penetration is one of the worst values you can find at Tier 8 (although the HEAT penetration is pretty nice).
Alpha damage: Average. 390 is standard for a 122mm; not much else to say here.
Aiming Speed: Worst in Class. A 3.23 second aiming speed is the worst value which can be found on a Tier 8 heavy tank.
Gun Handling: Bad. Despite the atrocious dispersion coefficients of .23/.23/.14, there are tanks which manage to be even worse off in gun handling, such as the 112, IS-5, IS-3A and T34. Regardless, you still have a horrendous gun handling value, and you should never really try to shoot on the move if it's avoidable.
Accuracy: Very Bad. .44 accuracy is one of the worst values for Tier 8 heavy tanks, which will make sniping at vehicles extremely difficult.
Shell Velocity: Very Bad. A 800m/s shell velocity is one of the slower values for Tier 8 heavy tanks, and having only 640 m/s shell velocity for the Premium HEAT rounds only worsens the problem. Combine the poor shell velocity with the terrible accuracy, aim time and gun handling, and you end up with a gun which has a major hissy fit any time you try to shoot something at distance.
View Range: Good. Even though most Tier 8 heavy tanks have 360m-400m of View Range, with many vehicles having 380m of View Range as well, all of the Soviet heavies have such terrible View Ranges that there's simply no doubt that 380m of View Range is a good value, especially for a Soviet counter-part vehicle.
Camo Value: Average. The WZ-111 may be a low profile vehicle, but don't expect to get any real camouflage values out of it. If you can see an enemy within your View Range, unless it's a Soviet tank, expect it to be able to see you as well.
Battle effectiveness: Very Good. Despite all of the crap I give the WZ-111 for its gun and module survivability, there's simply no contesting that kind of armor on a vehicle with Preferential MM. Whilst the WZ-111 may not be as "newbie-friendly" as something such as the IS-6, it's certainly a more competitive vehicle with a higher carry potential. The armor has an incredible amount of viability on the hull, and having a practically impenetrable turret (unlike the IS-6's fairly soft turret) is only an added bonus. Spaced side armor better than Soviet-grade voids is also quite the incredible feature to be able to boast. Using this armor, combined with your HP and mobility, you should be able to easily bully your opponents out of key positions. Whilst the gun may struggle to deal any kind of consistent damage, the alpha makes the results add up. Plus, if you ever need them, you have some fair and balanced 250mm HEAT pen rounds to make Soviet tank's armor seem like tissue paper. Of course, you still have to deal with the horrendously bad gun handling, accuracy and aiming time, as well as poor gun depression, but it certainly feels to be on a better platform for top level performance than something such as the IS-6 or even 112 (although 112 has its own sets of advantages).
Overall Rating:
7.5/10 (Very Good)
The WZ-111 is actually a very competitive Premium vehicle for one with Preferential MM and a fairly bad gun. The armor's potential is truly an incredible thing, and the forgiveness which the tank features is rather nice indeed. Despite having a few weakpoints in the armor (cupola, lower plate, shot-trapping shells on bottom side of gun mantlet), the tank remains extremely resilient.
All of this armor results in the gun, despite being quite a sub-par gun, still having ample opportunities to be able to do damage. Having some 250mm HEAT pen rounds is also a nice aspect of the gun which at least partially contributes to making the gun still usable in Tier 9 battles. Whilst I wouldn't "rely" on the armor to allow you to sit still and aim the gun in (it's much better to wiggle the armor to make it harder for the enemy to hit a weakpoint), it will still provide more than enough protection to allow the gun to get its job done.
The mobility of the vehicle along with the View Range means you're not a restricted bunker such as the IS-6 is. You won't be out-spotted by other heavy tanks for the most part, and in most normal engagements will be able to see who's shooting at you. When compared to the iS-6, I would honestly have to say that the WZ-111 simply has more carry potential due to more workable armor, better mobility and a usable Premium round.
Comparing the WZ-111 to the 112 is a much harder task, as the 112 has some similar strengths to the WZ-111 such as a very strong turret, good view range and mobility, and an extremely well protected upper plate (even better so than the WZ-111's). However, the 112 completely falls behind when it comes to side armor. The WZ-111 gets 120mm of sloped side armor for the upper portion of the vehicle, with a 30mm void of magical Stalin-grade spaced armor covering half of it. Below that for the most part is only 80mm, but covered with 20mm of track armor. This means that the WZ-111's side armor is a lot more forgiving than the 112's, and gives the WZ-111 another form of dynamic to the armor which the 112 lacks.
All in all, the WZ-111 can certainly be quite the competitive vehicle. As a "Credit grinder", it's not the greatest. You will occasionally get set on fire, you will need a few HEAT rounds and you may need a Large Repair Kit. Regardless, played well, the WZ-111 can still make some very decent income despite these drawbacks to its profitability. The seemingly mediocre gun really isn't too disappointing for the purposes of a money-making Tier 8 Premium heavy with Preferential Match-Making.
I'd give the WZ-111 a 7.5 / 10 rating, which barely puts it into the "Very Good" category. And whether you're going to use your WZ-111 as a "for fun" tank or as a Credit grinder, the WZ-111 certainly can be a very good vehicle indeed.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
This Tank Review was made as requested by Triple_Crown [WGA_A]. If you have any vehicles which you'd like me to review, let me know and I will put them into the queue! I will get to your tank as soon as possible!
(The Premium Chinese beast in all of its glory! It's happy to see you reading a review about it!)

Guide has been written as requested by @Triple_Crown [WGA_A]. If you would like to see a tank reviewed, whether it's your favorite vehicle, one you're currently or soon-to-be grinding or perhaps one you're just interested in, please let me know in the comments below! I will always take care of requested vehicles before others! (If I have not played the vehicle before, there may be a delay in the creation of the review, as I will first need to get experience playing the tank prior to being able to post a fully accurate review.)
Also, I've fixed the "Shell Velocity" section - apparently the text from the Mutz's review managed to slip by without detection in that part!
I will proofread the guide more fully right now. If you see any errors, please let me know and I'll try to fix them as soon as possible!
I wish to everyone the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield!

Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Refilling doggy treats, 35 seconds remaining! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! The Loader bought another farm! Now we have to make our own doggy treats! Refilling doggy treats, 70 seconds remaining! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark!
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the M41 Walker Bulldog (Ammo Puppy), explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 7 Light Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Very mobile vehicle, with a top speed of 72km/h
Great hp/ton ratio with great terrain resistances to back it up; allowing the Bulldog to reach its Top Speed rather effectively
Huge clip of 10 rounds, with 1,500 damage potential in the clip
Great gun depression for ridge-line shots, 8 degrees
Fairly good gun handling for the type of gun
Relatively quick aim time of 2.01 seconds
Great reverse speed of 24 km/h for getting out of trouble during ridge-line engagements
Second highest HP of the Tier 7 light tanks, at 910. This means that you can survive 6 76mm shells approximately 50% of the time, whereas other Tier 7 scouts aside from the LTTB would die in 5 shells.
Great View Range of 400m, allowing you to easily reach the 445m spotting cap & exceed it.
Neutrals:
2 seconds between shells may be the same as with the T71, but it will take the Bulldog 18 seconds of constant shooting to dump the entire clip. This makes its exposure time for maximum effectiveness and DPM far higher (along with the increased risks of longer exposure) than the T71. Still is nice to have the 1,500 clip potential though
Reasonable enough camo values. Despite them being the same as the T71, Bulldog finds it harder to hide due to its larger size.
Alright accuracy of .38. It's not the greatest, but for an autoloader of the sort you can't really complain too much.
Great ammo capacity of 70 rounds, however is even more restricted to flexibility with ammo than the T71 is. Due to the larger clip size, loading a clip of anything other than standard ammo comes with great risk of not being able to find usage for the shells, especially once it's loaded. You're much more likely to find usage of a clip of 6 HEAT shells than 10 HEAT shells; same would go for HE.
Cons:
Very long clip reload time of 35 seconds
Very low effective DPM. With a reload of 35 seconds, and a minimum of 18 seconds required for emptying a clip, you're restricted to at most one clip / reload per minute.
Extremely thin armor, even 76mm caliber HE can penetrate you.
Horrendously fragile ammo rack with only 160 HP. The Bulldog is one of the easiest tanks in the game to fully ammo rack (blow the turret off), and is certainly the one tank I've seen ammo racked more often than any other tank by a very large margin. This is the reason I call it the ammo puppy - it has a huge ammo capacity both overall and in its clip, but comes at the cost of having a very fragile ammo rack.
Very inflexible with its clip, and will often times struggle to find usage for the 10 shells in the clip. More often than not, you'll only shoot half of the clip and end up waiting another 20+ seconds before even finding another opponent
The above problem is only accentuated by the fact that the reload is 35 seconds long, often times you miss multiple opportunities to do damage during the reload. Alternatively, if you're not fully loaded and wait to spend all of your shells before clipping, you run the great danger of not having enough shells to finish off a crucial opponent
Very large, easy to hit vehicle. The unusually large clip means that you're either exposed for far longer than is safe in most cases, or end up retreating before having the opportunity to dump the clip; then coming back with only a few shells left. This also makes spotting a lot more difficult, as not only is it harder to hide in bushes than may be desired, but also means that retreating when spotted is far more likely to result in great damage to the tank in comparison to other light tanks.
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Improved Ventilation, Coated Optics and Vertical Stabilizer on the Bulldog. However, there are a lot of other options for equipment as well.
Recommended:
Improved Ventilation: Personally, I use Improved Ventilation for the purpose of reaching the 445m spotting cap when combined with Optics, as well as helping to improve the gun handling stats by a small margin. However, you can easily use Recon + Situational Awareness to reach the same spotting cap. This is the most flexible equipment slot, as there are many other options than Ventilation, depending on what you find most necessary.
Coated Optics: 400m View Range means that with Optics, you can easily reach the 445m spotting cap. I find the Bulldog to be a much more "Active" scout than some other vehicles, and a lot more reliant on its gun + mobility than other scouts. Thus, in order to maintain this playstyle, I mount Coated Optics over Binoculars.
Vertical Stabilizer: The Bulldog's gun handling certainly isn't the greatest, and with its constant movement around the battlefield, a Vertical Stabilizer certainly could work towards great benefit. However, if you play the Bulldog more passively / at longer ranges (or at much closer ranges) than standard play, it is also possible to replace the Stabilizer to address some of the Bulldog's other issues.
Optional:
Camouflage Net: If you want to emphasis a greater scouting role, especially passive scouting, you can replace the Ventilation / Stabilizer with a Camouflage Net. If you're going to be using a Camo Net for passive scouting however, you're likely to use Binoculars as well and / or be playing at a longer range thus mitigating the necessity of a Stabilizer and / or Coated Optics. If you want to use the Camo Net as a solo piece of equipment, replace the Improved Ventilation.
Enhanced Gun Laying Drive: Whilst I don't think that a Gun Laying Drive is very much necessary on the Bulldog, you could mount it in place of Improved Ventilation. It all depends on how much you want to emphasis the gun's performance on the Bulldog. If you treat the Bulldog as I do the T54E1 / T57 Heavy autoloaders, both as tanks almost entirely relying on the guns, then having an Enhanced Gun Laying Drive in addition to a Vertical Stabilizer may very well come in handy for your choice of playstyle.
Enhanced Torsion Bars 3t Class: Despite my only true recommendation of Torsion Bars on any tank being the MT-25, it can also have some viability on the Walker Bulldog. The reasoning behind it actually is entirely based off of how fragile the Bulldog's ammo rack is. If you have to use your repair kit on broken tracks due to a fall of some sort, you won't have that repair kit available to put your ammo rack back into action if it gets damaged (assuming you don't get one-shotted due to the ammo rack exploding from the first shot it takes). If the ammo rack is of great concern to you in the Bulldog, and you find yourself reasonably lucky with not getting the ammo rack blown off in a single shell, but rather only getting it damaged, then you could mount Torsion Bars instead of Improved Ventilation in hopes of keeping your Repair Kit available if your mess up with your driving. (Alternatively if you lose your ammo rack from fall damage but Torsion Bars keep your tracks intact, it also may keep you alive during the battle.) It really depends on how actively you use your Bulldog's mobility, under which terrain circumstances, and how good / bad you are at driving over bumpy / hilly terrain.
Binocular Telescope: As is the case with the Camo Net, if you want to emphasis a more passive spotting role / longer distance type of playstyle in the Bulldog, you can replace an equipment slot with Binoculars. If you are mostly replacing Active Scouting with Passive Scouting, replace the Coated Optics. If you're trying to emphasis both roles, replace Vertical Stabilizer (assuming you already replaced Vents with the Camo Net). If you are not going to use a Camo Net, replace the Improved Ventilation.
Toolbox: Once again going back to the fragile ammo rack & your driving capabilities on bumpy / hilly terrain, if you feel as though your driving isn't the greatest and you do like to maximize the Bulldog's mobility as often as possible, then you may consider replacing the Improved Ventilation with a Toolbox. If you break your tracks whilst driving, and have some time to repair the tracks but not too long, you can use a Toolbox in conjunction with Repair Skills to occasionally save your Repair Kit for your ammo rack. Of course, you won't need a Toolbox or Torsion Bars if you're more passive with the Bulldog, or are very good with your driving skills when going at high speeds on bumpy terrain.
Wet Ammo Rack Class 1: Probably the "Optional Equipment" choice which I most emphasis, adding an extra 80 HP to your ammo rack's 160 HP can help prevent one-shot ammo racks. Whilst you might still end up with a damaged ammo rack very often, you may not end up in the awkward situation of having been one-shotted by a Hellcat. The Wet Ammo Rack may very well come in handy. If you choose to use it, replace the Improved Ventilation (unless you're using more than one type of "Optional Equipment", then make a decision appropriate to the choices you're making).
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the Ammo Puppy Bulldog is 70 APCR.
To be entirely honest, I don't think that you have a choice with your ammunition layout on the Walker Bulldog. Personally, I feel as though the 210mm pen HEAT rounds are very questionable and extremely limited in their viable usage. Often times, they're a downgrade to your standard APCR. Even when you can use them appropriately, it's not very often when you'll find usage for an entire clip of 10 rounds, at least not at once. Even when you find purpose for them, you're likely to only use 4, 5 or 6 of them. Then you'll end up switching back to standard APCR and having only a half-clip of HEAT remaining, or shoot overly expensive HEAT rounds at tanks you don't need them for - or even end up not doing damage because of HEAT mechanics, whereas standard APCR would have worked just fine!
I'd much rather use a clip of HEAT on a T71 rather than a Bulldog, since I'm much more likely to make usage of the entire HEAT clip. In fact, I'd be much more willing to have two HEAT clips on the T71, than one HEAT clip on the Bulldog; despite the Bulldog having a larger ammo capacity. This is because if I only use 4 HEAT rounds with one clip, I can go for a reload in the T71 and refill another full clip of HEAT afterwards. I most likely will never need more than a second HEAT clip, thus I'll have been able to use however many rounds I needed without running out during an engagement. With the Bulldog, going for a 35 second reload for only a few shells simply seems like a waste. With the T71, going for a reload for only 3-6 needed HEAT shells is so much forgiving.
That being said, the Bulldog is also very inflexible due to its very long reload time - when you load a clip, you're much more likely to want to use the entirety of it than you would ever need to in the T71. With the T71, I will fire 2-3 shots and go for a reload very happily, and be reloaded by the time I set up in another location. With the Bulldog, I feel forced to use more than 6 rounds, to justify the 35 second reload. If you load a clip of HEAT or HE, it will take you 35 seconds to load it, and 18+ to use it all. It really feels like a huge waste of time to switch for a special ammo type just for an opponent that another ally can kill in the time you'll be finished reloading. It also feels like a waste since you're reloading for such a long time when you most likely won't need any more shells than the T71 can load.
I would never recommend loading HE in the Bulldog. Unless it's some kind of On-Track to the Waffle, or there's a rental of the Skorpion (German one, since it hasn't been released yet), there will almost never be a situation where you can justify having a clip of HE over APCR, especially considering the 35 second reload. When it comes to the T71, even though you're more flexible with the reload, you have a lower ammo capacity which can be used up, thus I still wouldn't ever recommend having HE unless you know you'll be fighting waffles.
It's also worth nothing that the HEAT rounds on both the Bulldog and T71 are some of the most ridiculously over-priced rounds in the game. They cost 5,600 Credits a shell, despite being 76mm shells which only do 150 damage a shot. For comparison, my 113's HEAT rounds cost 4,800 Credits for 440 damage. 3 times the damage for only 80% of the cost. Even more astounding - the FV4005's HESH rounds cost 8,000 Credits a shell for 1,750 damage a shell. That's only 2,400 more Credits for almost 12 times the damage! That's 1.4 times the cost for 11.67 times the damage!
A single clip of HEAT costs you 56,000 Credits in the Bulldog, for a very situational shell that has a hissy fit half of the time you fire it, and only does 150 damage during the times when it does actually do damage. They're so expensive, that even firing half a clip can be enough for you to lose money in a battle if you lost or didn't do very well.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the Ammo Puppy Bulldog, I use a Small First Aid Kit, Small Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Small First Aid Kit: Crew dies every now and then, you may need it.
Small Repair Kit: The ammo rack is so fragile, you're almost required to take it.
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: 20% chance of fire, with a rather large / easy to hit engine on a large, easy to hit vehicle will result in the concessional fire. I would definitely mount an Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Alternate:
Large Repair Kit: Either in place of the Small Repair Kit, or in place of the Small First Aid Kit, having either a better Repair Kit or a second Repair Kit certainly won't hurt when you have such a fragile ammo rack.
Case of Cola: If you're really feeling lucky / adventurous, and aren't overly worried about the chance of fire, you can replace the Fire Extinguisher with a Case of Cola. If you have a really good crew on the Bulldog and wish to do so, I would consider training your crew on Fire Fighting though. Alternatively, you can train the Commander with Jack of All Trades and replace the First Aid Kit.
Guns:
The Bulldog's gun is a very questionable 76mm which makes me believe WarGaming sometimes codes the game whilst drunk. The gun typically has an overkill clip capacity for an unnecessarily long reload, whilst having HEAT rounds which cost more in Credits than they would if they were simply made of solid Gold in the first place.
The Bulldog also has the option of mounting a single fire 76mm which is so significantly superior, yet kills the gameplay of the Bulldog at the same time, that you wonder whether you should just get a T71 for the playstyle of an autoloader and simply mount the single-fire gun on the Bulldog and adapt to an entirely different type of gameplay.
Below, I've compared the Ammo Puppy's 76mm autoloader, to the T71's autoloader, to the Ammo Puppy's single-fire 76mm. The left is the Bulldog's autoloader, center is the T71's autoloader, right is the Bulldog's single-fire gun. A blue value is superior, a green value is relatively tied (within 5%), an underlined value is superior between only the Bulldog / T71's autolaoders.
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 11.42 (12.34) (14.55)
Clip size: 10 rounds 6 rounds N/A - 1 round
Clip reload: 34.52 seconds 19.18 seconds N/A - 4.12 seconds
Aiming time: 2.01 (2.01) (1.82)
Accuracy: .38 (.37) (.36)
DPM: 1,713.62 (1,850.70) (2,182.72)
Penetration: 175/210/38 (175/210/38) (175/210/38)
Damage: 150/150/185 (150/150/185) (150/150/185)
Shell Velocity: 1,129/975/975 (1,129/975/975) (1,129/975/975)
Soft Stats: .14/.14/.16 (.18/.18/.12) (.14/.14/.08)
Gun Angles: -8 / +20 (-7 / +20) (-10 / +20)
Ammo capacity: 70 (60) (65)
The verdict? The Walker Bulldog's single-fire gun is superior in every single way to the autoloader, aside from the fact one gets a clip and the other doesn't. However, there's a stat which isn't written here which makes the single fire even better - the weight. The single-fire gun is 1.22 tons lighter than the autoloader, which has a very noticeable impact on the mobility. A Bulldog with the single fire gun accelerates more quickly, with an additional 1.06 HP/ton added to it.
When you compare the Bulldog's autoloader to the T71's autoloader, the T71 also comes out on top. Despite the Bulldog having significantly better gun handling during tank movement and traverse, the Bulldog also gets 50% more dispersion during turret movement which significantly counters the earlier advantage. The Bulldog has more shells in its clip, but that comes at the cost of reload, DPM, accuracy, etc. The Bulldog gets 10 extra shells, but due to the inflexibility with its reload time and clip size, that doesn't allow you any more flexibility with your ammo choices. The only thing which really goes in the Bulldog's favor is having 1 extra degree of gun depression over the T71 - although keep in mind that the Bulldog with the single fire gun has 10 degrees of gun depression, whereas the autoloader only gets 8.
Thus, all in all, the single fire gun is superior in so many ways, that it makes you wonder why anyone even uses the autoloader. The answer ultimately comes down to the clip potential. When dealing with isolated targets, or when dumping damage into an opponent in a short period of time, the autoloader has half of the time between shells than the single-fire gun would. Unlike the T37, which has a .7 or so second difference between shells with the two guns, which makes people choose the single fire gun, the Bulldog's difference is very significant.
Essentially, the logic behind the autoloader is that the faster you can kill your opponent, or do damage to the opponent, the sooner there is one less gun shooting at your team. This is true, but it comes at a very significant opportunity cost. The fact of the matter is that whilst during an immediate engagement, or an impromptu situation (such as a tank popping up over a kill for 4-5 seconds; long enough for autoloader to put in 3 shells, but single-fire only 2), the autoloader is yes a superior gun.
However, such situations are not the rule - just as often, if not more often, the single-fire gun will also have its own advantageous situations - what about all of those annoying situations when you can only put a couple of shells in? It wastes the 35 second reload. Perhaps you're in a situation when your allies will need lots of continuous support fire - single-fire will be able to provide it for longer, especially if you used up shells with the autoloader. Not having any impact on a battle due to reloading also is a drawback of the autoloader. And to add insult to injury, the single-fire gun has a lot more flexibility with its ammo choices, as it isn't forced to mount 10 of the same shell at once if you want to have any of that shell.
76mm Gun M32 Late (Single-Fire):
The Bulldog's single-fire gun is undoubtedly superior in any singe-shot scenario. It has a better aiming speed, accuracy, DPM, gun depression, HP/ton and flexibility with the ammo. The single-fire gun is really entirely a matter of playstyle, and distinguishing the Bulldog from the T71. Whilst typically, people will still recommend the autoloader (for reasons to be explained), and whilst I would still (marginally) recommend the autoloader over the single-fire gun, it certainly isn't the end of the world if you mount the single-fire gun.
For competitive play, the single-fire is best during ridgle-line peek-a-boom scenarios, sniping scenarios, or for sustained support fire in a dynamic map where you have a team of multiple Bulldogs with different guns where you don't know which type of gun will prove superior (as it may depend on enemy team composition).
Such scenarios in competitve play aren't all that common however, as usually engagements typically rely on focus fire during a push and effective DPM within a specific time frame. However, that's not the case 100% of the time, so it's still possible to find good usage for the single-fire gun.
76mm Gun T91E5 (Autoloader):
The Autoloader on the Bulldog is most preferred simply because it allows you to kill opponents more quickly during short-time frame engagements. This means that if you're circling an isolated target or putting shells off into a target which is only exposed / spotted for a limited period of time, you will be able to do more damage in a shorter period of time.
The autoloader also allows you to kill a full-HP T32 / T34 / IS-3 / IS-5 in a single clip, in 18 seconds, 50% of the time - assuming all shells penetrate.
Despite these advantages of the autoloader, the fact of the matter is that the T71's autoloader is a lot more flexible than the Bulldog's autoloader could ever dream of being. Whilst the Bulldog mostly has better tank stats to the T71, its gun entirely falls short. This means that if you're playing an American light tank for the autoloader, you'd really be better off playing the T71.
Thus the Bulldog is simply a clone, sacrificing gun performance for tank performance. If you want a unique type of playstyle however, one which really distinguishes the Bulldog from the T71, the single-fire gun will get the job done.
Over the course of an entire battle, alll factors considered, which gun is better? I really don't know. I intend to test the two guns out over a large number of battles, and record the data - ultimately coming to the conclusion of which gun is truly better (and not just theoretically using competitve play logic / analyzing raw statistics; as one indicates the autoloader, the other indicates the single-fire).
How to play it:
The Ammo Puppy Bulldog is heavily reliant on its firepower and mobility, rather than scouting capabilities. Whilst you can scout, and shouldn't miss crucial opportunities to extend good vision for your team, you're much more focused towards direct engagements with opponents rather than scouting. When you do scout, it's more of Active Scouting rather than Passive Scouting.
When it comes to the engagements you'll be performing, it depends on whether or not you use the single-fire or autoloading gun. If you're using the autoloader, you're more opportunistic, looking for isolated opponents. You want to find an opponent who is far from support fire which you can isolate and dump a full clip into. Alternatively, you want to find a spotted opponent who is pulling back into cover and put a couple of shells in. It's very well possible to stick near allies and peek-a-boom a few shells in a time until you've emptied your clip.
Clip management will be essential however. The Bulldog is extremely inflexible with its 35 second reload, and you really need to be careful about making decisions about keeping the clip or reloading. If you keep the clip for too long, you can put yourself at a huge disadvantage during a crucial engagement. Alternatively, if you reload too early, you may miss several crucial opportunities to shoot the enemy. Make sure that when you're keeping your shells, you'll be able to put a few shells into enemy tanks without isolating yourself from an upcoming battle. If you're reloading, make sure that it's early on during a stagnant part of the battle, or during map relocation on your behalf. If your allies are pushing, if they're going to be in an immediate engagement, put your remaining shells immediately and go for a reload as soon as you're out of shells or can no longer put shells in right away. If your allies are pushing over a distance, go for a reload immediately so that you'll have a full clip available when your allies begin the future engagement.
With the single-fire gun, you have the opportunity to use ridge-lines for continuous peek-a-boom engagements a lot more effectively. You never have to worry about a reload, and can keep poking, using the terrain to your advantage. The single fire gun is also better for providing longer-distance support / sniper fire. You will want to emphasis these strengths.
However, if your allies push and end up in a long, prolonged engagement, use your extra mobility with the single-fire gun to put yourself in a more advantageous position to put the increased DPM to work, to keep providing support fire for a longer period of time than the autoloader would be able to. Use that enhanced mobility and gun depression to use ridges very effectively for an opportunity for continual fire; whether at closer or longer ranges.
Comparison to same-Tier Light Tanks:
HP: Very Good. 910 HP is the second highest value amongst Tier 7 light tanks, and will allow you to survive 6 76mm shells 50% of the time, rather than being destroyed after 6 as most other light tanks would.
Armor: Very Bad. Whilst technically the Bulldog is 7/9 for armor, which would put it in the "Bad" category (60-80% of vehicles having a better stat), the difference between the LTTB / Chinese tanks in comparison to the Bulldog is so significant, that the Bulldog simply has to be labeled as "Very Bad". You may as well have wet tissue paper for armor.
Mobility: Best in Class. The Bulldog's mobility is tied with the LTTB for "Best in Class". Whilst the Bulldog's mobility stats are almost entirely superior to the LTTB aside from having a tied effective traverse speed, the LTTB has 38% more HP/ton whilst still maintaining reasonable soft stats. I would have thought that the soft stats of the Bulldog would put it ahead of the LTTB on a multi-terrain mobility test, but the LTTB actually surpassed the Bulldog on multiple occasions until the top speeds kicked in.
DPM: Worst in Class. The Bulldog simply has the worst DPM out of all of the other Tier 7 light tanks, at least with the autoloader. The single-fire gun fairs a lot better.
Penetration: Good. 175/210 pen is fairly average for Tier 7 light tanks, but it's certainly learning torwards the better side. The different between the AP on the Bulldog compared to the 3 Frenchies is rather significant, but the Bulldog's HEAT is not only unreliable, but is very much surpassed by the SP 1 C's 250mm of HEAT pen.
Alpha damage: Average. 150 alpha damage is the same as on the T71, lower than the LTTB / Type 62 / WZ-121 / SP 1 C, but better than the AMX 13 57, AMX 13 75 and Aufkl.Panther (Which was removed, but was still balanced accordingly to other Tier 7 light tanks).
Aiming Speed: Very Good. The Bulldog with the autoloader, not compared to the other Bulldog, is tied for 1st against all current light tanks, along with the LTTB and T71. However, the Bulldog's single-fire gun, as well as the Aufkl. Panther's gun both have / had better aiming times. Not counting the Aufkl. Panther, it's still inferior to itself (ironically enough).
Gun Handling: Good. Whilst the gun handling is alright on the Bulldog, it's not quite as good as it is on the Chinese tanks. The Bulldog also heavily falls behind in terms of turret traverse gun handling (especially when compared to itself using the single-fire gun - the autoloader has double the dispersion!)
Accuracy: Worst in Class. Whilst .38 accuracy might not be terrible, it's worse than every other Tier 7 light tank in the game, past, current or alternate gun.
Shell Velocity: Best in Class. A 1,219 m/s shell velocity is extremely impressive, and ties the Bulldog with the T71 for "Best in class".
View Range: Best in Class. 400m View Range is tied for "Best in Class", along with the T71, SP 1 C and Aufkl. Panther.
Camo Value: Worst in Class. Despite having very good camouflage values for its size, the Ammo Puppy Bulldog has the worst camouflage values out of all current light tanks. Only the Aufkl. Panther would have had a worse camo value.
Battle effectiveness: Very Good. Regardless of which gun you use on the Bulldog, the Bulldog is definitely one of the better light tanks at Tier 7. Whilst it may not be nearly as good of a scout as the LTTB or AMX 13 57, its combination of mobility, firepower, camouflage and View Range still allow it to have a very large impact on practically any battle.
Overall Rating:
7/10 (Good)
The M41 Walker Bulldog / Ammo Puppy is a strange vehicle, despite having an autoloader like almost every other light tank at the Tier, aside from the LTTB and the retired Aufkl. Panther. The Bulldog does have the option of mounting a single-fire gun however, which is superior to the autoloader in every single way aside from the fact that it lacks a clip and the playstyle behind such a fast-firing clip.
Regardless of which gun you choose, you will be able to have a large impact on the match - the Bulldog may not be the greatest scout, but it can still certainly fullfill the role to a rather reasonable degree. However, the Bulldog really stands out in terms of mobility and firepower, allowing it to constantly shift around the battlefield, spot opponents and put in very effective fire into the enemy.
What's really nice about the Bulldog is that it's a very independent vehicle, and can always pick and choose how it wants to play the match, and what kind of role it will have. It also will always be abe to provide a beneficial feature to almost any engagement.
The biggest annoyances about the Bulldog would definitely have to be its absolute inflexibility with the autoloader and exceptionally vulnerable ammo rack. Having your head blown off in a single shot isn't all that uncommon, and finding yourself in the situation of missing out on varying opportunities due to the inflexibility of the gun really is frustrating indeed.
The Bulldog is a good tank without a doubt, but simply falls behind in comparison to the two main competitors at Tier 7. If you want to use the autoloader on the Bulldog, you're almost certainly better off playing the T71. Alternatively, if you want to use the single fire gun, you'd be far better off running the LTTB.
The Bulldog isn't necessarily a tank to skip or pass up on, but be warned it does have its clear downsides and can have a far more active blend between scouting and combat than you would expect from a light tank. Keep your ammo rack safe, and make sure you adapt to the hybrid style of the Bulldog. The most important thing when it comes to mastering the Bulldog is ammo management with the autoloader, or consistently remaining engaged in the battle with the single fire gun.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
This Tank Review has been written as requested by @CAttack1.
(The mighty American beast. Isn't it a beauty?)

Jack of all trades, master of none... though often times, better than a master of one. The Pershing lives by this motto, and spreads freedom across the lands; liberating inferior tanks with the power of the bald eagle.
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the Freedom Pershing (Beer Eagle), explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 8 Medium Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
A true "Jack of All trades". It is an American tank; America will not disgrace itself with a vehicle which underperforms in any one regard.
Incredibly high APCR penetration of 268mm, this is actually higher than the standard APCR rounds of all Tier 10 vehicles aside from the E-50M.
Rather thick gun mantlet which can stop many shells from same-Tier vehicles, outer portions of the gun mantlet and / or turret have some very steep angles as well which can even bounce some Tier 10 shells.
Very high ammo capacity of 70 rounds with dirt cheap standard ammo. So long as you don't fire Premium rounds, you can actually make some rather nice profits in the tank despite it being a standard vehicle.
Great gun depression of 10 degrees all around the frontal 278 degrees of the tank, the rear 82 degrees has 9 degrees of gun depression. This means that most of the time, regardless of how you position the vehicle, you should have enough gun depression to shoot the enemy on fairly standard terrain.
Great View Range of 400m, allowing you to reach the 445m spotting cap rather easily with Coated Optics and one crew skill.
Neutrals:
Reasonable DPM of 1,831.36. It's not that great a value, but there aren't many Tier 8's that are better by that large of a margin.
Alright accuracy of .35, makes sniping fairly effective
Reasonable gun handling values when moving the hull, turret, after firing, etc.
Alright aiming time of 2.21 seconds
Pretty good shell velocity of 975 m/s. In comparison to other Tier 8 mediums, it's a pretty nice value to have.
Reasonable mobility with a 48 km/h top speed, 16.51 hp/ton
Reasonable terrain resistances which allow you to get the advertised performance from your engine on all terrains aside from soft terrain.
Decent tank traverse despite the listed value of 38. Your effective tank traverse will be around 47 degrees / second.
Alright hull and turret armor for a Tier 8 medium tank. It can pull off some bounces if angled well, and can provide rather nice protection against lower Tier vehicles.
A strange, but fairly good HP value of 1,440.
Reasonable module survavibility. You're not immune to taking module or crew damage, but it's not a very common occurrence either.
Decent camo values. You don't have any kind of magical cloaking devices such as some light tanks, TD's and the Obj. 416 do, but you can stay hidden at some mid-ranges and most long ranges if you have your crew trained in camouflage.
Cons:
Poor ground resistance on soft terrain, which will greatly slow you down when going through swamps or the Lakesville valley. That's it. That's the only actual "downside" of the Pershing. There isn't a single thing aside from soft terrain ground resistance which is below average / bad on the Pershing. Not one. The American Standard of Comfort. *Does not apply in the Lakesville Valley
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Improved Ventilation, Gun Rammer and Vertical Stabilizer on the Pershing. However, Coated Optics are probably a better choice than Ventilation - I'm just waiting for my crew to get BIA before swapping it out.
Recommended:
Coated Optics: 400m View Range means that with Optics, you will be up to 440m; just 5m short of the spotting cap. This is great for out-spotting your opponents, especially if your crew is trained in camouflage. The Pershing can actually make a decent scout, or at least remain self-sufficient in a battle with the aid of Coated Optics.
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should. Spread freedom with 90mm shells, now 10% faster than before!
Vertical Stabilizer: With a Vertical Stabilizer, the Pershing's gun handling becomes pretty nice indeed. You should definitely mount a Stabilizer if you enjoy superior standard of comfort.
Optional:
Improved Ventilation: If you really don't believe in spotting for yourself, or perhaps you have BIA + Situational Awareness + Recon + Case of Cola, then Improved Ventilation can be a decent substitute to Coated Optics for the overall performance of the vehicle. The only time I'd truly recommend having Ventilation over Optics on the Pershing is if it is a competitive environment and you know that you won't need to spot for yourself under any reasonable circumstances.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the Freedom Beer Eagle is 50 AP, 15 APCR and 5 HE.
The Pershing's gun is rather consistent indeed, with some nice mobility and gun depression to make it work in strange or flanking situations. If you're playing the Pershing well, you won't have any real necessity for many APCR rounds in most cases.
However, the Pershing's APCR rounds are a massive improvement over the standard AP rounds, with 78mm more penetration and an additional 244 m/s shell velocity. This means that if you have the Credits for more APCR rounds, or you're playing in a competitive environment, loading more APCR will help greatly improve the Pershing's possibilities with its gun. Just be warned that your Credits may need some resupplying afterwards!
Consumables:
For Consumables on the Pershing, I use a Small First Aid Kit, Small Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Small First Aid Kit: Why not? Your crew doesn't really die very often, but it's always nice to have a First Aid Kit just in case.
Small Repair Kit: If you are trained in Repairs, in most cases you won't need a Repair Kit. However, on occasion due to the frequency of hull-down tactics in the Pershing, it is possible that your gun will be damaged and could use some repairs.
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: The Pershing has a 20% chance of fire, so it is nice to have an Automatic Fire Extinguisher around to keep you safe; even if you won't be shot in the engine very often. Fuel tanks almost never are damaged.
Alternate:
Anything: If you want to run Octane Gas, Case of Cola or something else on the Pershing, you can. Due to the infrequency of module damage, crew injury of fires, what you mount on the Pershing in terms of consumables is really up to you.
Guns:
The Pershing's gun is a very reliable 90mm. The gun doesn't really specialize in anything aside from incredible APCR penetration and gun depression, but doesn't fall behind in anything either. The perfect gun for a Jack of All Trades.
Below, I've compared the Freedom Eagle's 90mm to the Panzer 58 Mutz's 90mm. On the left is the Freedom Beer Eagle, on the right is the bear. A blue value is superior, whilst a green value is relatively tied (Within 5% of the other value). (Please note that all values are "stock", prior to any equipment mounting)
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 7.63 (7.82)
Aiming time: 2.21 (2.21)
Accuracy: .35 (.35)
DPM: 1,831.36 (1,877.14)
Penetration: 190/268/45 (212/259/45)
Damage: 240/240/320 (240/240/320)
Shell Velocity: 975/1,219/975 (1,000/1,250/1,000)
Soft Stats: .15/.15/.11 (.18/.18/.10)
Gun Angles: -10 / +20 (-10 / +25)
Ammo capacity: 70 (48)
The verdict? The guns are practically identical. The one area where the Mutz really stands out aside from gun elevation is the rather significantly improved AP penetration. However, the Pershing makes up for this with some significantly improved gun handling stats (aside from turret traverse, but it is worth noting that the Pershing's turret turns more quickly, thus slightly worse gun handling during a faster turret traverse is only to be expected).
90mm Gun T15E2M2:
The Pershing's gun is a well-rounded armament, and is very consistent in what it does. Go hull-down, use the gun depression and put in relatively accurate shells into your opponents at rather decent rate. In close to mid-ranged engagements, you can shoot on the move if you want to. When it comes to sniping, you have just enough shell shell velocity, penetration, gun handling and aiming time to make it work.
The only way to make the gun really "stand out" from its peers would be to load APCR rounds, with their 268mm of penetration and 1,219 m/s shell velocity. Aside from that, the gun depression is the only really impressive aspect of the Pershing's gun. There really isn't anything to complain about when it comes to the weaponry.
How to play it:
The Pershing is a support vehicle, Jack of All Trades and independent business man all in one. Regardless of which situation you put the Pershing into, it can always bring something to the battlefield which will allow it to perform rather decently.
Whilst the Pershing may not necessarily excel in any one aspect at any one moment during the battlefield, it will excel over other tanks throughout the entirety of the course of a battle. Whereas other tanks will find themselves in the awkward situation at one point or another where they can't really contribute to the engagement much in any viable way, the Pershing will always be able to do something. At the end of the battle, this often times means that the Pershing will be the last man standing, still going strong whereas other tanks have crippled or succumbed to their weaknesses.
The main strength of the Pershing is its flexibility on the battlefield. You can always find a place for a Pershing, and can never feel bad about having one on your team. You know that it will always find its way to be useful, and can often times be the most flexible vehicle on the battlefield, providing support in even the most awkward of situations.
If you want your Pershing to excel at something, make usage of its excellent gun depression and gun mantlet. With some APCR rounds, the Pershing can become a hull-down beast like almost no other, only truly surpassed by the T32 and T34.
There is no necessarily "correct" way to play the Pershing. The primary two things you need to emphasis are your vehicle's flexibility and taking on consistent support fire role. If you need to fall back on something, it will be the gun depression, gun mantlet and View Range; allowing you to engage and weaken your opponents from a distance before having to deal with a close-range encounter if it becomes necessary.
Comparison to same-Tier Medium Tanks:
HP: Good. 1,440 HP is a good value for a Tier 8 medium tank. With some decent armor, especially on the turret & gun mantlet, you can pull off a few good bounces to help preserve your hitpoints throughout the battle as well. You'll make better usage of the 1,440 HP than quite a handful of other mediums would.
Armor: Good. Whilst the armor isn't spectacular, it can certainly be rather nice indeed. Your gun mantlet will be the most reliable portion of your armor profile, although the hull can pull off the occasional ricochet if angled well. There are a few areas of the turret / gun mantlet which can be penetrated, especially by higher Tier vehicles, but there are also quite a few zones which will absorb even the majority of non-TD Tier 10 shells. Don't rely on the armor as an absolute safeguard as you may be able to on the T32 / T34, but it's certainly a good feature which will help keep you alive during the midst of a battle.
Mobility: Good. The Pershing's mobility is very well-rounded. You have a decent top speed, decent HP/ton, decent terrain resistances and a decent hull traverse speed. The tank isn't incredibly mobile, but it certainly isn't slow by any means either. Once again, it's fairly decent indeed but doesn't excel.
DPM: Bad. The Bear Eagle Pershing (Not to be confused with the Freedom Eagle Super Pershing, despite the identical DPM value) has decent DPM, but when compared to other Tier 8 mediums, comes tied for 15th out of 23 for DPM; tied with the Super Pershing. Most of the DPM differences between other tanks are no greater than 200 points however, and the Pershing is within 100 points of most other Tier 8 mediums in terms of DPM.
Penetration: Good. Whilst the standard AP round penetration is tied for 12th out of 23 along with the 59-Patton, making the standard round penetration as "average", the Pershing has "Best in class" APCR penetration values, of 268mm (although the Obj. 416 does have much higher Premium shell penetration of 330mm, it fires HEAT rather than APCR). This means that in Tier 8 and 9 battles, in most cases you should be able to get by just fine with the standard AP. However, in Tier 10 matches or in more competitive circumstances at Tier 8 / 9, the APCR rounds will provide you with more than enough penetration to contest even the thickest of armor values even at Tier 10 if you shoot at weakpoints.
Alpha damage: Average. 240 alpha damage is standard for a 90mm gun, not much else to say here.
Aiming Speed: Very Good. 2.21 second aiming time is tied for 3rd for aiming time, tied with 6 other vehicles. This puts the Pershing towards the top of the pack in this regard, and can pull of shots just as quickly if not faster than almost any other Tier 8 medium tank.
Gun Handling: Very Good. The Freedom Beer Eagle's gun handling is approximately tied for 3rd for gun handling, once again with the 59-Patton. This means that the Pershing can pull off snap-shots better than most other tanks, albeit not nearly as well as the Patton KR and Obj. 416 can.
Accuracy: Good. .35 accuracy isn't a great value, but it isn't bad either. It's tied for 8th in accuracy, with 7 other vehicles; out of 23. With a good crew and possibly a Case of Cola, you should be able to snipe fairly reliably (especially if you're shooting APCR and penetrating the target isn't too much of a concern; meaning you don't have to aim for small portions of the vehicle to hit weakpoints, but rather just being able to shoot at it as a whole).
Shell Velocity: Good. 975m/s shell velocity is tied for 9th in shell velocity, along with the Super Pershing. In terms of DPM and shell velocity, you're getting exactly the same performance as you would from the Super Pershing. 975m/s shell velocity is enough to get some rather nice results from sniping. The APCR rounds have 1,219 m/s shell velocity which should make sniping very easy indeed. Overall, it's once again a value that isn't spectacular, but isn't terrible either.
View Range: Best in Class. 400m View Range is tied for "Best in Class", along with the Centurion Mk. 1 and the T69. However, unlike the other two vehicles, the Pershing is better suited to make usage of the View Range due to the more "well-rounded" nature of the Pershing, and it's great adaptability / flexibility on the battlefield.
Camo Value: Good. Despite the fairly large size of the Pershing, it's tied for 8th or 9th in Camo Values. Most of the tanks which surpass it's camo values only do so marginally as well. Thus, in mid to longer ranges, if you have a camo skill crew you can actually stay hidden in many cases. Combine the decent camo with Best in Class View Range, and you should be able to out-spot all other Tier 8 mediums aside from the Obj. 416 by at least a small margin. You'll never out-spot an Obj. 416 however, as it has a magical cloaking device which is almost always active aside from very close ranges out in the open.
Battle effectiveness: Very Good. The Freedom Beer Eagle Pershing may not excel in many aspects, but it's one of the most reliable vehicles you can find at Tier 8. Regardless of how you position yourself in the battlefield, the Pershing will almost always have something to fall back upon which will allow it to contribute rather well. Unlike most other Tier 8 mediums which specialize in a few aspects but fall behind in many others, the Pershing will never struggle to find a way to make an impact on the battle. And whilst I wouldn't rank it as the best Tier 8 medium tank, it's certainly one of the most reliable and consistent ones, able to keep going strong even when most other tanks have faltered. Throughout the course of an entire battle, the Pershing will tend to be one of the most crucial vehicles on the battlefield, often with one of the largest impacts. It's certainly not a tank you could complain about having on your team.
Overall Rating:
8.5/10 (Great)
When comparing to all of the other Tier 8 mediums tanks, many of which are either rather mediocre as a whole or are very limited in their specializations, the Pershing is certainly one of the better vehicles to have. Regardless of the situation it's in, it will always find a way to contribute rather nicely to the battlefield.
Despite having no realistic downsides to it, the Pershing does still have a few areas in which it is certainly above average in, such as gun depression, gun mantlet armor, View Range and APCR penetration. These 4 strengths of the Pershing make it an exceptional ridge-line, mid-ranged warrior on the battlefield.
Even when the Pershing isn't in such an optimal environment however, it always have something to fall back upon. There will never be a time when the Pershing disappoints you, or when you find yourself struggling to figure out how to be useful.
The Pershing even has some rather nice income values to go along with it. This means that you can use your great flexibility and carry potential on the battlefield to net home some decent profits at the end of each match.
All in all, the Pershing is one of my favorite Tier 8 mediums, and is one of the most consistent and reliable vehicles you can find at Tier 8. It is truly a Jack of All Trades, even having a few traits in which it excels. This means that the Pershing will never find a situation in which it falls behind, and it truly is usually better than a master of one. You really can't go wrong with picking up a Pershing, whether you intend it to be a keeper to your collection, a "pimping" tank, or simply one you're grinding through whilst going down the American medium tank line. The Pershing will not disappoint.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
This Tank Review has been written as requested by @quan27.
(The mighty American medium, prepared to spread freedom and beer across the lands!)

"I'll call it the AMX Baguette, or Baguette for short. So let's look into the armor. As a proper baguette, this thing has no armor." ~Sir Foch
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the AMX CDC (Baguette), explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 6 Medium Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Extremely mobile vehicle, one of the fastest tanks in the game for straight-line travel
Great DPM of over 2,000. Hopefully that doesn't reflect the calorie count.
Extremely accurate gun, .33 accuracy
Great gun depression and elevation angles (-10 / +20). You want a flexible bread; no one wants a stiff baguette!
Very good penetration values, allowing you to punch holes through the enemy vehicles for optimal baking results
Great Credit income. The baguette that pays for itself!
Good reverse speed of 20km/h allowing you to back out of trouble when necessary.
Alright aiming time of 2.11 seconds. May need longer in the oven though.
Ridiculously high ammo capacity of 90 rounds. No one really knows what the purpose of all of that ammunition is though. Perhaps the armor was so thin, they decided to use the spare materials for shells?
Neutrals:
Decent tank traverse speed of 40 degrees / second. It's not too terrible, but don't expect to be able to circle most opponents.
Average damage of 240, as you'd expect from just about any 90mm gun.
Good HP of 1,400, but due to the lack of armor as highlighted by SirFoch, that HP won't last very long
Alright camo values. The tank is rather large, so don't expect to be scouting from bushes, but you can stay hidden whilst sniping in most cases.
Cons:
The armor is so thin, legend is that you would be better off using actual baguettes as armor for the hull. Tier 1's will penetrate your front. HE will butter through you all day long. To top it all off, you're a giant landing strip for artillery shells. Hey, at least with all of that High Explosive being thrown at you, the baguette will be cooked all the way through sooner!
It turns out that those 90 shells you have were being used as additional armor to prevent the tank from falling apart when driving over pebbles. As such, hits to the hull very often result in ammo rack damage.
Looks like French bread doesn't have very good traction either. Your terrain resistances are about on the same level as the IS-7's. Whilst this won't affect your acceleration too much as you already have a 35.58 hp/ton ratio, it will limit you to 25 hp/ton levels of acceleration, and affect the traverse speed as well.
Poor gun handling stats. Something about "quick bake" makes for a rather unstable gun. Perhaps it's the carbohydrates resulting in poor stabilization. No one really knows.
Seeing as how the crew may end up having too much to eat inside the AMX Baguette, they tend to have a hard time getting back up after the tank is shaken up by a shell. The crew will die rather often if the HE starts flying.
World's largest loaf of bread here. The tank is huge. At least you won't have to worry about running out of food any time soon!
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Improved Ventilation, Gun Rammer and Vertical Stabilizer on the AMX Baguette. Coated Optics and Binoculars are also both viable options.
Recommended:
Improved Ventilation: Rather than using Optics or Binoculars, I tend to mount Ventilation on my French Baguette. I would never trust the CDC to spot for itself simply due to the incredible size, mediocre camo values and mediocre tank traverse speeds which limit its ability to escape from trouble if it gets spotted. Whilst you certainly want to be providing distant support fire in the CDC, I prefer to rely on my ally's vision. When things go wrong for the CDC, you're typically left with a burnt crisp. It can be very hard to recover from a misplay in the CDC.
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should. Whether or not the tank resembles a breakfast item, the AMX Baguette should have a Rammer on it.
Vertical Stabilizer: Due to the very poor gun handling, there's no reason not to have a Stabilizer on the tank. It will make aiming in on targets a lot easier.
Optional:
Coated Optics: If you feel comfortable spotting your own targets, Coated Optics may allow you to spot your opponents from a long enough distance so that they won't be able to smell the fresh-baked goodness. However, 390m of View Range isn't enough to reach the 445m spotting cap which you may want.
Binoculars: Since Coated Optics won't let you reach the 445m cap, Binoculars are also a viable option for spotting targets at safe distances. However, you will have to sit still rather often to make usage of the Binoculars. The CDC is very mobile, but will find itself doing a lot of long-ranged support fire as well. As such, either Coated Optics or Binoculars are equally viable choices. Regardless of which one you mount, you should only do so in place of Improved Ventilation. You must keep the Gun Rammer and Vertical Stabilizer.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the Baguette is 60 AP, 25 APCR and 5 HE. The ingredients are 2 envelopes of dry active yeast, 2 tbs honey, 3.5 - 4 cups all purpose flour, 2 tsp salt, canola oil, cornmeal, 3-4 ice cubes, ricotta cheese and acacia honey.
The AMX CDC has very good penetration values with its standard AP rounds, thus there's really no reason to carry much APCR at all. The only reason I have 25 APCR rounds is because of the ridiculously high ammo capacity. Unless you need to carry against several Tier 10 heavy tanks, you will never blow through that APCR unless you're spamming it pointlessly.
The great mobility and accuracy of the CDC only further allow it to flank and make usage of the standard AP round penetration. If you want to cut the APCR count down to 15, you very could do so. With a 90 round ammo capacity, you can really pick and choose ammo as you please; there's no reason for you to ever run out of any one shell type.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the AMX Baguette, I use a Small First Aid Kit, Small Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Small First Aid Kit: French bread doesn't provide any real protection for the crew, thus a First Aid Kit is a must.
Small Repair Kit: Seeing as how some of the ammo is used as armor, you will definitely need a Repair Kit to put the Ammo Rack back in action.
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: The AMX Baguette is not very flamable actually, but since it does tend to be an HE magnet, I'd still carry around an Automatic Extinguisher just in case.
Alternate:
Large Repair Kit: If the ammo rack gives you serious problems, you could very well either replace your Extinguisher with a Large Repair Kit; or rather mount a Large Repair Kit in place of a Small Repair Kit, just in case artillery decides to snack on you.
Guns:
The Baguette's gun is a very reliable 90mm. It mostly relies on the penetration and accuracy, although the good DPM helps it as well.
Below, I've compared the Baguette's 90mm to the Panzer 58 Mutz's 90mm. On the left is the Baguette, on the right is the bear. A blue value is superior, whilst a green value is relatively tied (Within 5% of the other value). (Please note that all values are "stock", prior to any equipment mounting)
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 8.57 (7.82)
Aiming time: 2.11 (2.21)
Accuracy: .33 (.35)
DPM: 2,057.14 (1,877.14)
Penetration: 212/259/45 (212/259/45)
Damage: 240/240/320 (240/240/320)
Shell Velocity: 1,000/1,250/1,000 (1,000/1,250/1,000)
Soft Stats: .20/.20/.16 (.18/.18/.10)
Gun Angles: -10 / +20 (-10 / +25)
Ammo capacity: 90 (48)
The verdict? The CDC's gun specializes in DPM, accuracy and ammo capacity, whereas the Mutz specializes in gun handling (especially during turret traverse) and gun elevation angles. Otherwise, the guns are just about the same. In practice, the only differences between the two guns are the DPM and accuracy in favor of the CDC, and the gun handling in favor off the Mutz. Both are very competitive guns.
90mm AC DCA 45:
The Baguette's gun is a sniper, designed for providing constant support fire to your allies. It's called the Deadliest Baguette for the reason. The gun is extremely competitive for a Premium vehicle. The great penetration values and shell velocity allow you to easily penetrate your opponents, the accuracy allows you to hit them rather reliably and thus your effective DPM in combat will be rather high indeed, and should make your base DPM very proud.
If there's one thing not to do in the CDC, it's to shoot on the move. The CDC simply is not capable of doing so. Using the gun depression angles for ridge-line peek-a-boom fighting can be a very good tactic to use, but do remember that your armor is non-existent and you are a very large target. Whether or not you are using your gun depression, you will be a very easy target to hit if you stick around for too long. Poke over a ridge, take a shot and pull back as quickly as possible. Use the great acceleration and reverse speed in combination with the gun depression to allow you to do so. When peek-a-booming using ridges in such a way, make sure that you use auto-aim to minimize your exposure time. Unless you have the time to aim a shell in, your goal is to just be an annoyance; kind of like a gopher poking up in different holes all over your yard.
How to play it:
The Baguette is a very capable, but very unforgiving vehicle. Your main strengths are the mobility, gun depression, penetration, DPM and accuracy. This means that you have two things really going for you - speed and gun performance. Use the mobility of the vehicle to relocate to advantageous locations which will allow you to maximize your gun's performance.
Regardless of what you do in the CDC, remember that you have two key priorities in battle. The first is to provide constant support fire to your allies, as that's how the CDC will make its impact. Select targets which your allies are providing vision on, and put some long-ranged support fire into them. Alternatively, stick close to your allies and help the focus targets down; peek-a-booming using ridges whenever the enemy is reloading or distracted.
The second priority however, is to avoid being shot at. Unless a very important ally's only hope of surviving is if you share your HP with him / her, there is no reason for you to be taking any kind of hits. Like many French tanks, the CDC is a selfish vehicle when it comes to its hit points or close presence in an engagements. The CDC specializes in support fire and relocation. Do not take any hits; rather reinforce the stereotype of French vehicles having more gears for reverse than forwards, and relocate to a more advantageous position whenever possible.
Played properly, the AMX Baguette will net you plenty of Credits at the end of each battle. Played poorly, you will simply end up as an over-cooked bread product.
Comparison to same-Tier Medium Tanks:
HP: Average. 1,400 HP is fairly average for a Tier 8 medium tank. It's nothing special, but not bad either. Do be warned that it won't last very long if you begin getting shot at however, as you have no armor to block any shells to preserve the HP.
Armor: Worst in class. The AMX CDC does not have any armor, rather only baguettes and shells.
Mobility: Very Good. Despite the Baguette being the fastest Tier 8 medium, it's not the most agile due to the mediocre tank traverse and very poor soft stats. There are other mediums which may do a better job at circling other opponents. Regardless, you'll always be the quickest at relocation.
DPM: Good. The Baguette's DPM is tied for 5th out of all 23 Tier 8 mediums, tied with the Panther II. This results in having some very competitive values, allowing you to pick apart those inferior non-edible vehicles rather quickly indeed.
Penetration: Very Good. The Baguette has some very good penetration values with its shells, allowing for easy penetration of the enemy vehicles; resulting in great Credit profits at the end of each match.
Alpha damage: Average. The Baguette has a standard alpha damage of 240, as you'd expect from any 90mm gun. Compared to other Tier 8 mediums, it's better than the Centurion, worse than the 122mm's. Otherwise, since most Tier 8 mediums use 90mm's, your alpha damage is just on par with most other tanks.
Aiming Speed: Very Good. 2.11 second aiming time is the second quickest aiming time out of all of the Tier 8 mediums, only beat by the STA-2.
Gun Handling: Bad. The Baguette's gun handling is very poor in comparison to other Tier 8 mediums, being tied for rank #14 with 4 other mediums out of all 23 for gun handling.
Accuracy: Very Good. .33 accuracy is tied for 3rd best accuracy for all of the Tier 8 mediums. French bread works in mysterious ways.
Shell Velocity: Very Good. The 1,000 m/s shell velocity will allow you to easily hit moving targets, especially considering the great accuracy of the gun as well. Your shells are as good at running away from your barrel as your tank is at running away from the fight!
View Range: Average. Even though 390m View Range is technically tied for 4th in View Range, it's tied with 8 other mediums for that value - thus it's actually a fairly average View Range.
Camo Value: Average Seeing as how the Baguette is rather large, the camo values aren't that great. However, despite the huge size, the tank manages to maintain a decent amount of stealth. The tank has enough camo to keep you hidden at most of the longer ranges at which you'll be sniping.
Battle effectiveness: Good. The AMX CDC / Baguette can certainly have a decent impact on the battle. Unfortunately, this is limited by the fact that the vehicle is forced to play almost entirely a support role, often times at long distances as well. A tank which is purely for support, regardless of how well it can relocate, simply is not going to be able to carry all close situations. Unfortunately, if you try to place aggressively whilst still providing support, you won't be any better off - if you're shot at, the tank will be crippled very quickly. If you're not shot at, it's likely because you're being very opportunistic with the shots you take, which means that your effective DPM presence is going to be severely limited as well. The AMX Baguette certainly isn't a bad tank, and does have its role on the battlefield, but isn't going to be the first choice of tank when it comes to carrying a match.
Overall Rating:
7.5/10 (Very Good)
Despite being somewhat limited in its ability on the battlefield due to playing almost entirely a support role, and often at longer ranges, the AMX CDC can make a very good presence on the battlefield regardless. The great DPM, accuracy and penetration of the gun will allow you to very reliably put shell after shell into your opponent.
Unfortunately, your gun handling stats are rather bad, but the AMX Baguette isn't designed for engaging opponents at close to mid-ranges anyways, which is the only time when gun handling really matters (as let's be honest, you're not going to be pulling off many 500m snapshots regardless of the tank you're in).
The great mobility of the Baguette allows you to quickly take advantageous key positions on the battlefield, and extend vision control as necessary. Otherwise, if the engagement is approaching too close for the Baguette's comfort, it can always simply go somewhere else. The poor gun handling won't really matter in many cases, as you will be sniping and providing distant support fire most of the time anyways. Thus the mobility is there to simply put you in other key positions for you to keep your gun in the battle.
As a Premium vehicle, the AMX Baguette is certainly one of the better money-making Premiums, and with the cheap cost, is one of the better value Premium vehicles you can get. If you are a capable player looking for a fun Premium vehicle which can make great Credits, the AMX CDC Baguette would be one of the first vehicles I'd recommend, only second to the Panzer 58 Mutz.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
(Is that a baguette or the CDC? I still can't really tell. Now I'm hungry... oh well.)

I would love to see the community overhaul version of Blackshadow's MLP voices. The skins however, I don't think they work anymore. Quite a few of the mods in the overhaul package are no longer up to date, as the owner ceased work on them.
The green fire base circle, 6th sense mods and crew voices still work just fine however, and I'd love to see them.

Mine is currently sitting at 28.6 GB. A clean installation of the entire client could probably cut it down, as it would remove out-dated update packages, as well as any extra unecessary files, but there's really no reason to do so unless you're really low on space on your computer, in which case you should likely look for other ways to free up room anyways.

You can, to an extent. After selecting the new mods you want, simply remove the "Clean install" checkbox, and install. However, make sure you don't have any of the current mods selected, as you'll just end up overwriting them. Select the new ones, deselect current ones, deselect Clean Install, and then run the installer.
Hopefully Aslain will correct me if I'm wrong.

What's that IS-7? You think I'm fat?! Just because I'm American and chewing on a burger?! Come over here...I'll show you fat! This is all muscle. All American muscle, all American steel. Prepare yourself... because I'm about to go mad dog on your behind! Nothing your "Hand of Stalin" can do to save you now!
In this guide, I shall cover all of the various Pros and Cons of the T110E5, explain the gun choices and/or performance, equipment choices, give you a general overview of its gameplay style and compare it to other Tier 10 Heavy Tanks. Let's get started, shall we?
Table of Contents:
General overview (Pros and Cons)
Equipment, ammo and consumable layout
Gun choices and / or performance
Gameplay style
Comparison to other same-class tanks of its Tier
Overall Rating
General Overview:
Pros:
Very good all around frontal armor
Very thick turret front, can hardly be penetrated; great for hull-down
8 degrees of gun depression will allow you to get rid of that anthill right underneath your nose prior to beginning your meal of enemy vehicles
Good DPM of 2,502.86
"Weakpoints" on the front are actually fairly thick and well-angled, can be very tough to penetrate
Good gun handling on the move
Very quick aiming time of 1.92 seconds
Very good accuracy of .34
Very good turret traverse speed for a heavy tank, at 33.37
Rather mobile for a heavy tank, with an HP/ton ratio of 16.37
Rarely gets set on fire, despite the 20% chance of fire. Engine doesn't get hit very often at all, and fuel tanks are also small and hard to hit.
Neutrals:
Mediocre terrain soft stats. Doesn't hurt the acceleration too much, but does make the traverse speed feel a bit sluggish.
Reasonable gun elevation of 15 degrees/second. Not quite the standard 18, but still alright.
Alright tank traverse of 30 degrees/second. Could be better though, considering the horsepower.
Limiting top speed of 37 km/h. You'll quickly reach the top speed, but then you feel as though your engine power is going to waste once you've hit it.
Interesting side armor layout. Its only 76mm thick, but the bottom 3/5ths are well angled inwards, increasing its effective thickness. You also have large tracks surrounding the side armor. Depending on where you get hit, you'll either easily bounce the shell, or easily be penetrated. Not necessarily consistent side armor.
HP of 2,200. Nothing special, but not necessarily bad either.
Cons:
Very vulnerable ammo rack, which is found in both, the front and sides. If someone shoots you in the lower plate at an upward angle, your ammo rack will be damaged easily. Penetrating shots to the side will kill it very often as well.
Huge commander's hatch. It is rather thick and hard to penetrate, but for those who are able to go through it, it's a giant, easy weakpoint.
Very large lower plate. Has some strange angles to it, and some rather thick areas, but in general it's a very large and easy to hit weakpoint
Due to the nature of the turret cheek's shape, turning your turret to the side even slightly can make them a very easy penetration if they're hit. However, this only applies to a portion of the turret cheeks, so it really depends where on the cheeks you get hit.
Bottom half of the side armor is only 44mm. During standard side-scraping, the strange angling to it should keep you safe - be careful about over-exposing however... it can become a very easy weakpoint!
Upper plate relies on angling - guns with high penetration from tall tanks can punch through the back half of it fairly easily actually. Don't let people shoot down at that back-half; keep wiggling!
Driver will die very often to HE, and occasionally to penetrating shots through the hull.
Very limited reverse speed of 12 km/h; can be hard to back out of trouble if you over-expose, especially due to the size of your weakpoints
Bottom half of the side armor can be over-matched by any gun 140mm and above.
Equipment:
Personally, I mount Improved Ventilation, Gun Rammer and Vertical Stabilizer on the T110E5. Coated Optics are an option, but it's a matter of preference.
Recommended:
Improved Ventilation: Never a bad thing to mount. T110E5 doesn't really need it, but why not?
Gun Rammer: If you can mount a Gun Rammer on a tank, you should; regardless of the vehicle. T110E5 is no exception, and gets very nice DPM with a Rammer.
Vertical Stabilizer: Vertical Stabilizers are a very important piece of equipment on almost every tank in the game. Even though the T110E5's soft stats are rather reasonable, a Vertical Stabilizer will significantly help; and allow the T110E5 to very reliably snap-shot enemy vehicles.
Optional:
Coated Optics: Coated Optics are rather viable on the T110E5, in place of Ventilation. It has a rather accurate gun with very good DPM. With Optics, you can spot a few targets for yourself; and out-spot tanks with poor camo without Optics.
Ammo:
My ammo layout on the T110E5 is 24 AP, 15 HEAT and 3 HE.
The E5 really doesn't need nearly as much HEAT as I load; I only do so to easily butter E-100's, Maus's and IS-7's. However, if you don't have the Credits to spend, you could easily reduce the HEAT count rather significantly. you can also load a couple more HE rounds if you want, in place of HEAT rounds. Beyond that, not much to say about the E5's ammo layout. You can choose how to set it up; based off of your own preferences and necessities.
Consumables:
For Consumables on the T110E5, I use a Small First Aid Kit, Small Repair Kit, and Automatic Fire Extinguisher. However, I do not recommend using an Automatic Fire Extinguisher and actually replacing it with something else.
Small First Aid Kit: T110E5's crew does a very good job of surviving, except for the driver who appears to be allergic to the tank's lower plate and all HE shells.
Small Repair Kit: The E5's ammo rack is huge and very fragile. You definitely want a Small Repair Kit available for that (and Repair skills so you won't need the kit for your tracks).
Automatic Fire Extinguisher: E5 isn't actually flamable, so I don't recommend using this piece of equipment. I only use it because I don't have many Credits.
Alternate:
Large Repair Kit: There are going to be quite a few battles when your ammo rack gets taken out more than once, especially with the fairly limited hull traverse speed. The larger lower plate also containing the ammo rack can become a rather annoying issue if you're not careful as well. Just in case, taking a Large Repair Kit should really help you address the ammo rack issue.
Case of Cola: If SerB was feeling kind and gave your T110E5 a more durable ammo rack, then you could easily run a Case of Cola in place of an Automatic Fire Extinguisher.
Guns:
The T110E5's gun is a rather consistent 120mm cannon.
Below, I've compared the T110E5's 120mm to the FV215b's 120mm. On the left is the T110E5, on the right is the FV215b. A blue value is superior, whilst a green value is relatively tied.
Guns:
Rate of Fire: 6.26 (7.19)
Aiming time: 1.92 (1.63)
Accuracy: .34 (.32)
DPM: 2,502.86 (2,876.85)
Penetration: 258/340/60 (259/326/120)
Damage: 400/400/515 (400/400/515)
Shell Velocity: 1.067/1.067/1,067 (1,067/1,334/1,067)
Soft Stats: .18/.18/.08 (.10/.10/.08)
Ammo capacity: 42 (35)
The verdict? Well, FV215b beats the T110E5 in practically every single way in terms of firepower. Your only advantage is a slightly larger ammo capacity... even your extra Premium shell pen is negated by the fact that it's HEAT, rather than APCR. If you're looking for a gun, get the FV215b.
120mm Gun M58:
Even though the T110E5's gun is inferior to the FV215b's in every single way, it's still a very good and consistent gun. It has good DPM, good accuracy and aiming time, and reasonable soft stats. It certainly isn't the FV215b, but it will still get the job done very effectively. It's a great weapon for supporting your allies, or even 1 vs. 1'ing enemies.
How to play it:
T110E5 is actually fairly straightforwards. You're a front line vehicle which is excellent for supporting for allies and supporting pushes. Unfortunately however, your mobility is rather restricted due to the top speed and traverse speed caps. Simply go to the front lines where an engagement will occur.
Try to hull-down whenever possible, as your turret armor is very effective. In addition, your large commander's hatch becomes harder to penetrate if the enemy is forced to shoot up at it (hull-down over ridges). Hull-down also has the other advantage of hiding that lower plate, which contains your far-too-fragile ammo rack.
Be careful when turning or peeking over ridges. If an enemy shoots up into your lower plate, or hits you in the side, your ammo rack will go out. Due to the limited traverse speed and only mediocre terrain resistance values, an E5 with its side against an autoloader is a dead E5. Two BatChat shells can send your turret flying, so you have to use the repair kit immediately after taking a shot to the side if it gets your ammo rack. The E5's armor is made of ammo racks. Very thick ammo racks, but it's made of ammo racks.
If you need to snipe, you can do so. I wouldn't recommend making it a primary role, as you have a lot of frontal armor which should be at the front lines helping allies, but out of necessity it's very possible. In terms of relocation, you're mobile enough to get where you need to go. You're not going to be flanking anyone, but you can cross the map fairly effectively. The enemy being a distance ahead isn't necessarily an excuse to snipe.
Comparison to same-Tier Heavy Tanks:
HP: Average. 2,200 HP isn't bad, but it's not great either. With your good frontal armor, the HP should still be able to last you a while though; so long as you don't get ammo racked.
Armor: Good. Your hull armor frontally is very thick and well-angled. Regular AP shells and lower Tier vehicles may greatly struggle to penetrate you, so long as your lower plate is hidden. However, the E5's weakpoints are very large. If the enemy has enough penetration power to go through them, the E5 becomes very easy to kill actually. Your side armor is mostly well-angled and / or covered by tracks, although in itself isn't very thick. If you over-angle, it's also very easy to penetrate (and contains the E5's ammo rack).
Mobility: Good. T110E5 is a rather mobile heavy tank without a doubt. It's certainly not a 113 or AMX 50B, but it's still decently mobile. It will accelerate quickly and has a reasonable top speed to go along with it, but is very limited in terms of traverse speed. The terrain resistance is also mediocre, which further limits your turning abilities. The top speed also sometimes may feel as though it's putting the engine power to waste.
DPM: Good. The T110E5's DPM is definitely on the higher end of heavy tanks. It's only surpassed by the 113, AMX 50B, FV215b and T57 Heavy.
Penetration: Very Good. The T110E5's penetration is very good, even for a Tier 10 heavy. A couple of tanks surpass it, but other than that, it's up top.
Alpha damage: Good. 440 alpha is very nice to have on a tank with the kind of DPM which the 113 can boast about. 440 alpha goes a long way with that reload.
Aiming Speed: Very Good. A 1.92 second aiming time is very good indeed. You'll quickly be able to aim in, and get shots off as necessary
Accuracy: Very Good. .34 accuracy makes you tied with the AMX 50B and T57 Heavy for second-best accuracy on any Tier 10 Heavy tank.
Shell Velocity: Good. 1,067 m/s shell velocity is a pretty good value. It still doesn't come close to those tanks with APCR as standard ammo or Premium ammo, but it's still a good value.
View Range: Very Good. 400m of View Range is standard for most heavy tanks. On my 113 review, I wrote that every Tier 10 heavy has 400m but it turns out that the FV215b has 410m and the Obj. 777 II has 390m.
Camo Value: Average. The T110E5's camo values are very poor, which is average for a Tier 10 heavy. Well, at least you're not a Type 5 Heavy.
Battle effectiveness: Very good. The T110E5 is a very capable tank in the right hands. It has very reliable frontal armor for the most part, has a consistent gun with good DPM, gun handling and accuracy. Your mobility is also fairly good. You're not the most armored (Maus), you don't have the best gun (FV215b) nor the most mobile (113), but your overall stats are still on the higher end of the Tier 10 heavy tanks. You should easily be able to wreck the enemy. The better the MM, the better your armor is. Your weakpoints are thick, but huge. When there are many Tier 10's in a battle, your armor isn't all that great. When there are more lower Tier vehicles than Tier 10's however, your armor can be very beastly. Being hull-down over a ridge also greatly helps your armor values. The T110E5 is a great team tank, and can definitely carry quite a few battles.
Overall Rating:
8/10 (Very Good)
The T110E5 is an exceptionally good vehicle. Despite its weakpoints being huge, they're also very thick and can bounce a lot of shells. Hull-down over a ridge is ridiculously OP now, as your commander's hatch will become practically impenetrable. Even hull-down on flat ground will do you wonders by hiding that lower plate. The side armor isn't very thick, but has huge tracks covering it, and has some very nice angling to the weaker portions (Do be warned that the bottom half of the side armor can be over-matched by Type 4 Heavies, E-100's and over 140mm and above guns).
The biggest downsides to the T110E5 is the cripplingly large and weak ammo rack, huge (albeit very armored) weak points, mediocre side armor and limited traverse speed. Regardless, the T110E5 has a lot of carry potential so long as it's used properly. Even in the wrong situation, it's rather forgiving so long as your side isn't exposed (in which case you're a very easy target).
I'm rather conflicted about whether to give the T110E5 a 7.5 or 8 rating. The tank is very capable in the right hands and has a lot of carry potential; could even arguably be considered OP. However, it still does have the occasional battle where your gunner becomes bored and decides to light your ammo rack up as a firework display; causing your tank to simply shrivel up and die.
All in all however, the T110E5 is a great Tier 10 heavy, and one you can't really go wrong with.
Thanks for reading! I hope this guide was helpful! I genuinely wish all of you the very best of luck and fun, both in real life and on the battlefield.
(The American beast proudly gazing off to the side)